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Single Cs Atoms as Collisional Probes in a large Rb Magneto-Optical Trap

Quantum Physics 2011-09-08 v1

Abstract

We study cold inter-species collisions of Caesium and Rubidium in a strongly imbalanced system with single and few Cs atoms. Observation of the single atom fuorescence dynamics yields insight into light-induced loss mechanisms, while both subsystems can remain in steady-state. This significantly simplifies the analysis of the dynamics, as Cs-Cs collisions are effectively absent and the majority component remains unaffected, allowing us to extract a precise value of the Rb-Cs collision parameter. Extending our results to ground state collisions would allow to use single neutral atoms as coherent probes for larger quantum systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1010.1087,
  title  = {Single Cs Atoms as Collisional Probes in a large Rb Magneto-Optical Trap},
  author = {Claudia Weber and Shincy John and Nicolas Spethmann and Dieter Meschede and Artur Widera},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1010.1087},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

6 pages, 4 figures