Detailed study of a transverse field Zeeman slower
Atomic Physics
2021-01-19 v2 Quantum Gases
Optics
Abstract
We present a thorough analysis of a Zeeman slower for sodium atoms made of permanent magnets in a Halbach configuration. Due to the orientation of the magnetic field, the polarisation of the slowing laser beam cannot be purely circular leading to optical leakages into dark states. To circumvent this effect, we propose an atomic state preparation stage able to significantly increase the performances of the Zeeman slower. After a careful theoretical analysis of the problem, we experimentally implement an optical pumping stage leading to an increase of the magneto-optical trap loading rate by 3.5. Such method is easy to set up and could be extended to other Zeeman slower architectures.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1609.06525,
title = {Detailed study of a transverse field Zeeman slower},
author = {Dany Ben Ali and Thomas Badr and Thibault Brézillon and Romain Dubessy and Hélène Perrin and Aurélien Perrin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.06525},
year = {2021}
}