Related papers: Optimizing the production of metastable calcium at…
We report on the Bose-Einstein condensation of metastable Helium-4 atoms using a hybrid approach, consisting of a magnetic quadrupole and a crossed optical dipole trap. In our setup we cross the phase transition with 2x10^6 atoms, and we…
A continuously operated electrostatic trap for polar molecules is demonstrated. The trap has a volume of ~0.6 cm^3 and holds molecules with a positive Stark shift. With deuterated ammonia from a quadrupole velocity filter, a trap density of…
An experiment is proposed to excite the 'forbidden' 1s2s 3S1 - 1s2s 1S0 magnetic dipole (M1) transition at 1557 nm in a collimated and slow atomic beam of metastable helium atoms. It is demonstrated that an excitation rate of 5000 /s can be…
Recent studies have confirmed the coupling of optical vortices, such as Laguerre-Gaussian and Bessel-Gaussian modes, to quadrupole-active atomic transitions. This interaction has been shown to be enhanced considerably in the case of…
We have created and trapped a pure sample of 87Rb2 Feshbach molecules in a three-dimensional optical lattice. Compared to previous experiments without a lattice we find dramatic improvements such as long lifetimes of up to 700 ms and a near…
Alkaline-earth atoms in their lowest triplet P_2 state are exceptionally long-lived and can be trapped magnetically. The nonspherical atomic structure leads to anisotropic long-range interactions between two metastable alkaline-earth atoms.…
We report successful production of sub-radiant states of a two-atom system in a three-dimensional optical lattice starting from doubly occupied sites in a Mott insulator phase of a quantum gas of atomic ytterbium. We can selectively produce…
Long-lived ionic quantum states known as metastable electronic states in highly-charged ions (HCIs) are of great interest in fundamental physics. Especially, it generates transitions with very narrow natural linewidth which is a promising…
We report the first detailed decay studies of trapped metastable (2S) hydrogen. By two-photon excitation of ultracold H samples, we have produced clouds of at least 5x10^7 magnetically trapped 2S atoms at densities greater than 4x10^10…
We report measurements of the lifetimes of the 3d $^2$D$_{5/2}$ and 3d $^2$D$_{3/2}$ metastable states of a single laser-cooled $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ion in a linear Paul trap. We introduce a new measurement technique based on high-efficiency…
We show that an optimized loading of a cold ensemble of rubidium-87 atoms from a magnetic trap into an optical dipole trap sustained by a single, far-red-detuned mode of a high-Q optical cavity can be efficient despite the large volume…
Optically trapped laser-cooled polar molecules hold promise for new science and technology in quantum information and quantum simulation. Large numerical aperture optical access and long trap lifetimes are needed for many studies, but these…
We demonstrate a simple scheme to reach Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of metastable triplet helium atoms using a single beam optical dipole trap with moderate power of less than 3 W. Our scheme is based on RF-induced evaporative cooling…
We trap cold, ground-state, argon atoms in a deep optical dipole trap produced by a build-up cavity. The atoms, which are a general source for the sympathetic cooling of molecules, are loaded in the trap by quenching them from a cloud of…
We report optical trapping of laser-cooled molecules at sufficient density to observe molecule-molecule collisions for the first time in a bulk gas. SrF molecules from a red-detuned magneto-optical trap (MOT) are compressed and cooled in a…
The majority of molecules proposed for laser cooling and trapping experiments have $\Sigma$-type ground states. Specifically, $^2\Sigma$ states have cycling transitions analogous to D1-lines in alkali-metal atoms while $^1\Sigma$ states…
We report on the realization of an ultracold (<25~muK) mixture of rubidium ({87}Rb) and metastable triplet helium ({4}He) in an optical dipole trap. Our scheme involves laser cooling in a dual-species magneto-optical trap, simultaneous MW-…
We consider a narrow magneto-dipole transition in the $^{169}$Tm atom at the wavelength of $1.14\,\mu$m as a candidate for a 2D optical lattice clock. Calculating dynamic polarizabilities of the two clock levels $[\text{Xe}]4f^{13}6s^2…
Cadmium is laser-cooled and trapped with excitations to triplet states with UVA light, first using only the $67\,$kHz wide $326\,$nm intercombination line and subsequently, for large loading rates, the $25\,$MHz wide $361\,$nm…
We report magneto-optical trapping (MOT) of a polyatomic molecule, calcium monohydroxide (CaOH). The MOT contains $2.0(5)\times 10^4$ CaOH molecules at a peak density of $3.0(8)\times10^{6}$ cm$^{-3}$. CaOH molecules are further sub-Doppler…