Progress toward a zero-magnetic-field environment for ultracold-atom experiments

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method to significantly reduce magnetic fields in ultracold sodium gas experiments to a few tens of microGauss, enabling exploration of new quantum phases of matter.

Contribution

It introduces a Landau-Zener spectroscopy technique to precisely characterize and minimize magnetic fields in ultracold atom experiments, reaching unprecedented low levels.

Findings

Magnetic field reduced to a few tens of microGauss.

Enables observation of novel quantum phases in ultracold spinor Bose gases.

Provides a practical approach for ultra-low magnetic field environments.

Abstract

The minimization of the magnetic field plays a crucial role in ultracold gas research. For instance, the contact interaction dominates all the other energy scales in the zero magnetic field limit, giving rise to novel quantum phases of matter. However, lowering magnetic fields well below the mG level is often challenging in ultracold gas experiments. In this article, we apply Landau-Zener spectroscopy to characterize and reduce the magnetic field on an ultracold gas of sodium atoms to a few tens of {\mu}G. The lowest magnetic field achieved here opens to observing novel phases of matter with ultracold spinor Bose gases.