2006/10/16 by W. Vassen, Vassen, W., T. Jeltes +6
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #cond-mat.other
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0610414
18 pages, 11 figures; to be published in the Proceedings of the International school of physics "Enrico Ferm": Ultracold Fermi gases, Varenna, June 20-30 (2006)
arxiv created 2006/10/16 · openalex publication_date 2006/10/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We give an overview of the experiments at the Laser Centre of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam on ultracold gases of metastable helium-4 and helium-3 as well as mixtures of both isotopes. We describe our experimental setup and discuss our experiments on Bose-Einstein condensation of 4He* (more than 10 million atoms in a BEC) and sympathetic cooling of 3He* towards Fermi degeneracy (more than 1 million atoms below the Fermi temperature as well as realization of a degenerate boson-fermion mixture). We also present our results on Penning Ionization in ~1 mK clouds containing a single isotope (homonuclear losses) or a mixture of both isotopes (heteronuclear losses).