Laser trapping of 225Ra and 226Ra with repumping by room-temperature blackbody radiation.
We have demonstrated Zeeman slowing and capture of neutral 225Ra and 226Ra atoms in a magneto-optical trap. The intercombination transition 1S0-->3P1 is the only quasicycling transition in radium and was used for laser-cooling and trapping. Repumping along the 3D1-->1P1 transition extended the lifetime of the trap from milliseconds to seconds. Room-temperature blackbody radiation was demonstrated to provide repumping from the metastable 3P0 level. We measured the isotope shift and hyperfine splittings on the 3D1-->1P1 transition with the laser-cooled atoms, and set a limit on the lifetime of the 3D1 level based on the measured blackbody repumping rate. Laser-cooled and trapped radium is an attractive system for studying fundamental symmetries.
Guest
J R
JR
Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA.
Scielzo
N D
ND
Ahmad
I
I
Bailey
K
K
Greene
J P
JP
Holt
R J
RJ
Lu
Z-T
ZT
O'Connor
T P
TP
Potterveld
D H
DH