Intense slow beams of bosonic potassium isotopes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a 2D magneto-optical trap for bosonic potassium isotopes, achieving high flux and low velocity atomic beams suitable for Bose-Einstein condensation experiments, supported by a multilevel theoretical model.

Contribution

It introduces a 2D-MOT setup for bosonic potassium isotopes with high flux and low velocity, and presents a multilevel model accurately predicting experimental results.

Findings

Achieved atomic flux up to 1.0x10^11 atoms/s

Generated atomic beams with velocities around 33 m/s

Model accurately predicts flux and velocity values

Abstract

We report on an experimental realization of a two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (2D-MOT) that allows the generation of cold atomic beams of 39K and 41K bosonic potassium isotopes. The high measured fluxes up to 1.0x10^11 atoms/s and low atomic velocities around 33 m/s are well suited for a fast and reliable 3D-MOT loading, a basilar feature for new generation experiments on Bose-Einstein condensation of dilute atomic samples. We also present a simple multilevel theoretical model for the calculation of the light-induced force acting on an atom moving in a MOT. The model gives a good agreement between predicted and measured flux and velocity values for our 2D-MOT.