Simultaneous magneto-optical trapping of a boson-fermion mixture of metastable helium atoms.
We simultaneously confine fermionic metastable 3He atoms and bosonic metastable 4He atoms in a magneto-optical trap. The trapped clouds, containing up to 1.5 x 10(8) atoms of each isotope, are characterized by measuring ions and metastable helium atoms escaping from the trap. Optical pumping of 3He atoms to a nontrapped hyperfine state is investigated and it is shown that large atom numbers can be confined without additional repumping lasers. Unique possibilities for quantum degeneracy experiments with mixtures of spin-polarized metastable 3He and 4He atoms are indicated.
Laser Centre Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
R J W
RJ
Stas
J M
JM
McNamara
W
W
Hogervorst
W
W
Vassen