1999/10/31 by B. Ueberholz, Stefan Kuhr, S. Kuhr +5 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0953-4075/33/4/105
published as J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 33, L135 (2000). · LaTeX 2e, 5 pages, 4 Postscript figures
arxiv created 1999/12/08 · openalex publication_date 2000/02/03 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
We have explored experimentally a novel possibility to study exoergic cold atomic collisions. Trapping of small countable atom numbers in a shallow magneto-optical trap and monitoring of their temporal dynamics allows us to directly observe isolated two-body atomic collisions and provides detailed information on loss statistics. A substantial fraction of such cold collisional events has been found to result in the loss of one atom only. We have also observed for the first time a strong optical suppression of ground-state hyperfine-changing collisions in the trap by its repump laser field.