Fast compression of a cold atomic cloud using a blue detuned crossed dipole trap

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a rapid and efficient method to compress a large number of cold rubidium atoms using a blue detuned crossed dipole trap, achieving high densities suitable for light localization studies.

Contribution

The authors experimentally realize a fast, dynamically adjustable blue detuned crossed dipole trap for cold atoms, enabling rapid compression to high densities.

Findings

Achieved compression of 5x10^7 atoms within 5-10 ms.

Reached atomic densities of approximately 10^13 cm^-3.

Trap potential accurately modeled by a quasi-static approximation at high rotation frequencies.

Abstract

We present the experimental realization of a compressible blue detuned crossed dipole trap for cold atoms allowing for fast dynamical compression (~ 5 - 10 ms) of 5x10^7 Rubidium atoms up to densities of ~ 10^13 cm^-3. The dipole trap consists of two intersecting tubes of blue-detuned laser light. These tubes are formed using a single, rapidly rotating laser beam which, for sufficiently fast rotation frequencies, can be accurately described by a quasi-static potential. The atomic cloud is compressed by dynamically reducing the trap volume leading to densities close to the Ioffe-Reggel criterion for light localization.