English

Light-shift tomography in an optical-dipole trap for neutral atoms

Atomic Physics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

We report on light-shift tomography of a cloud of 87 Rb atoms in a far-detuned optical-dipole trap at 1565 nm. Our method is based on standard absorption imaging, but takes advantage of the strong light-shift of the excited state of the imaging transition, which is due to a quasi-resonance of the trapping laser with a higher excited level. We use this method to (i) map the equipotentials of a crossed optical-dipole trap, and (ii) study the thermalisation of an atomic cloud by following the evolution of the potential-energy of atoms during the free-evaporation process.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0807.3672,
  title  = {Light-shift tomography in an optical-dipole trap for neutral atoms},
  author = {Jean-Philippe Brantut and Jean-François Clément and Martin Robert De Saint Vincent and Gael Varoquaux and Robert A. Nyman and Alain Aspect and Thomas Bourdel and Philippe Bouyer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0807.3672},
  year   = {2009}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:03:30.197Z