# Accurate measurement of the loss rate of cold atoms due to background gas collisions for the quantum-based cold atom vacuum standard

## TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of cold atom loss rates due to background gas collisions, validating quantum scattering calculations and establishing a cold-atom vacuum standard with high accuracy.

## Contribution

It introduces a method for accurately measuring loss rate coefficients for cold atoms colliding with various gases, supporting the development of a quantum-based vacuum standard.

## Key findings

- Measured loss rate coefficients with <2% uncertainty.
- Found strong agreement with quantum-scattering calculations for most gases.
- Validated cold-atom-based vacuum measurement as a primary standard.

## Abstract

We present measurements of thermalized collisional rate coefficients for ultra-cold $^7$Li and $^{87}$Rb colliding with room-temperature He, Ne, N$_2$, Ar, Kr, and Xe. In our experiments, a combined flowmeter and dynamic expansion system, a vacuum metrology standard, is used to set a known number density for the room-temperature background gas in the vicinity of the magnetically trapped $^7$Li or $^{87}$Rb clouds. Each collision with a background atom or molecule removes a $^7$Li or $^{87}$Rb atom from its trap and the change in the atom loss rate with background gas density is used to determine the thermalized loss rate coefficients with fractional standard uncertainties better than 1.6 % for $^7$Li and 2.7 % for $^{87}$Rb. We find consistency -- a degree of equivalence of less than one -- between the measurements and recent quantum-scattering calculations of the loss rate coefficients [J. Klos and E. Tiesinga, J. Chem. Phys. 158, 014308 (2023)], with the exception of the loss rate coefficient for both $^7$Li and $^{87}$Rb colliding with Ar. Nevertheless, the agreement between theory and experiment for all other studied systems provides validation that a quantum-based measurement of vacuum pressure using cold atoms also serves as a primary standard for vacuum pressure, which we refer to as the cold-atom vacuum standard.