Spin Gradient Demagnetization Cooling of Ultracold Atoms

Journal Article · Fri May 13 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.106.195301· OSTI ID:21538339

Medley, Patrick; Weld, David M; Miyake, Hirokazu; Pritchard, David E; Ketterle, Wolfgang ^[1]

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1. MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)

We demonstrate a new cooling method in which a time-varying magnetic field gradient is applied to an ultracold spin mixture. This enables preparation of isolated spin distributions at positive and negative effective spin temperatures of {+-}50 pK. The spin system can also be used to cool other degrees of freedom, and we have used this coupling to cool an apparently equilibrated Mott insulator of rubidium atoms to 350 pK. These are the lowest temperatures ever measured in any system. The entropy of the spin mixture is in the regime where magnetic ordering is expected.

• OSTI ID: 21538339
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 19; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.195301; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COOLING
COUPLING
DEMAGNETIZATION
DISTRIBUTION
ENTROPY
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETIZATION
RUBIDIUM
SPIN
ALKALI METALS
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
ELEMENTS
METALS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES