Schemes for loading a Bose-Einstein condensate into a two-dimensional dipole trap

TL;DR

This paper proposes and numerically simulates two methods for adiabatically loading a Bose-Einstein condensate into a surface dipole trap created by evanescent optical waves, with preliminary experimental results supporting feasibility.

Contribution

It introduces two novel loading schemes for Bose-Einstein condensates into a surface dipole trap and demonstrates their effectiveness through numerical simulations and initial experiments.

Findings

Adiabatic transfer achievable in tens of milliseconds.

Surface trap exhibits strong anisotropy with high frequency along one axis.

Preliminary experiments confirm the feasibility of the proposed schemes.

Abstract

We propose two loading mechanisms of a degenerate Bose gas into a surface trap. This trap relies on the dipole potential produced by two evanescent optical waves far detuned from the atomic resonance, yielding a strongly anisotropic trap with typical frequencies 40 Hz x 65 Hz x 30 kHz. We present numerical simulations based on the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation of the transfer process from a conventional magnetic trap into the surface trap. We show that, despite a large discrepancy between the oscillation frequencies along one direction in the initial and final traps, a loading time of a few tens of milliseconds would lead to an adiabatic transfer. Preliminary experimental results are presented.