Bose-Einstein Condensation and Spin Mixtures of Optically Trapped Metastable Helium
Résumé
We report the realization of a BEC of metastable helium-4 atoms ($^4$He$^*$) in an all optical potential. Up to 10$^5$ spin polarized $^4$He$^*$ atoms are condensed in an optical dipole trap formed from a single, focused, vertically propagating far off-resonance laser beam. The vertical trap geometry is chosen to best match the resolution characteristics of a delay-line anode micro-channel plate detector capable of registering single He$^*$ atoms. We also confirm the instability of certain spin state combinations of $^4$He$^*$ to two-body inelastic processes, which necessarily affects the scope of future experiments using optically trapped spin mixtures. In order to better quantify this constraint, we measure spin state resolved two-body inelastic loss rate coefficients in the optical trap.
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