Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Summary
We present a parametric driving method to cool an ultracold Fermi gas in a crossed-beam optical dipole trap. This method selectively removes high-energy atoms from the trap by periodically modulating the trap depth with frequencies that are resonant with the anharmonic components of the trapping potential.
Abstract
We present a cooling method for a cold Fermi gas by parametrically driving atomic motions in a crossed-beam optical dipole trap (ODT). Our method employs the anharmonicity of the ODT, in which the hotter atoms at the edge of the trap feel the anharmonic components of the trapping potential, while the colder atoms in the center of the trap feel the harmonic one. By modulating the trap depth with frequencies that are resonant with the anharmonic components, we selectively excite the hotter atoms out of the trap while keeping the colder atoms in the trap, generating parametric cooling. This experimental protocol starts with a magneto-optical trap (MOT) that is loaded by a Zeeman slower. The precooled atoms in the MOT are then transferred to an ODT, and a bias magnetic field is applied to create an interacting Fermi gas. We then lower the trapping potential to prepare a cold Fermi gas near the degenerate temperature. After that, we sweep the magnetic field to the noninteracting regime of the Fermi gas, in which the parametric cooling can be manifested by modulating the intensity of the optical trapping beams. We find that the parametric cooling effect strongly depends on the modulation frequencies and amplitudes. With the optimized frequency and amplitude, we measure the dependence of the cloud energy on the modulation time. We observe that the cloud energy is changed in an anisotropic way, where the energy of the axial direction is significantly reduced by parametric driving. The cooling effect is limited to the axial direction because the dominant anharmonicity of the crossed-beam ODT is along the axial direction. Finally, we propose to extend this protocol for the trapping potentials of large anharmonicity in all directions, which provides a promising scheme for cooling quantum gases using external driving.
Introduction
In the past two decades, various cooling techniques have been developed for generating Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) and degenerate Fermi gases (DFG) from hot atomic vapors1,2,3,4,5. BEC and DFG are novel phases of matter that exist in extremely low temperatures, usually one millionth of a degree above absolute zero temperature, far below those normally found on Earth or in space. To obtain such low temperatures, most cooling methods rely on lowering the trapping potential to evaporatively cool the atoms. However, the lowering scheme also decreases the collision rate of the atoms, which limits the cooling efficiency when the gas reaches the quantum regime6. In this article, we present an "expelling" method to evaporatively cool an ultracold Fermi gas in an ODT without lowering the trap depth. This method is based on our recent study of parametric cooling7, showing several advantages compared to the lowering schemes7,8,9.
The key idea of the parametric scheme is to employ the anharmonicity of the crossed-beam ODT, which makes the hotter atoms near the edge of the trapping potential feel the lower trapping frequencies than the colder atoms in the center. This anharmonicity allows the hotter atoms to be selectively expelled from the trap when modulating the trapping potential at frequencies resonant with the high-energy atoms.
The experimental protocol of parametric cooling requires a pre-cooled noninteracting Fermi gas near the degenerate temperature. To implement this protocol, an acousto-optic modulator (AOM) is used to modulate the intensity of the trapping beams by controlling the modulation frequency, depth and time. To verify the cooling effect, the atomic cloud is probed by absorption imaging of time-of-flight (TOF), where a resonant laser beam illuminates the atomic cloud and the absorption shadow is captured by a charge coupled device (CCD) camera. The cloud properties, such as the atom number, energy, and temperature, are determined by the column density. To characterize the cooling effect, we measure the dependence of the cloud energies on the various modulation times.
Protocol
NOTE: This protocol requires a home-built ultracold atom apparatus including the following equipment: two external cavity diode lasers (ECDL), a locking setup for the ECDL offset frequency locking10, a fiber laser for the ODT, an AOM for laser intensity modulation, an radio frequency (rf) antenna system with a source generator and a power amplifier, an absorption imaging system with a CCD camera, a computer program for timing sequence and data acquisition (DAQ), a computer program for imaging processing and data analysis, a pair of electromagnets for the MOT and bias magnetic fields, and an ultrahigh vacuum chamber including a 6Li vapor oven and a Zeeman slower (shown in Figure 1).
Caution: Three lasers of different powers and wavelengths are used. Please consult the relevant laser safety data sheets and choose the proper laser safety goggles.
1. Timing Control
NOTE: All timing sequences are controlled by a 128 channel PCI DAQ card through a timing control program. The resolution of the timing sequence is 100 µs. Several instrumentation control programs are used to control the settings of the instruments, such as fiber laser arbitrary function generator (AFG), ODT AFG, arbitrary pulse generator (APG), parametric modulation AFG, MOT multiplexer, rf generator, etc.
- Open the timing control program and the control programs for the instruments.
NOTE: The timing control program sends TTL (Transistor-transistor logic) signals to the control terminals for running the timing control files. Some instruments are connected to the computer by GPIB (IEEE 488) for real-time control. - Write the experiment timing file and set the timing parameters as listed in Table 1.
NOTE: The after MOT timing sequence is also illustrated by Figure 2.
2. CCD Camera Preparation
NOTE: CCD camera is used to record the absorption imaging of the cold atoms, which is the main diagnostic tool of cold atoms.
- Turn on the CCD camera driver and its control program. Set the CCD camera to Particle image velocimetry (PIV) mode11. Set the CCD exposure time to 5 ms.
NOTE: PIV mode reduces the time gap between the signal and reference frame, which increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the absorption imaging. - Use an external trigger to control the CCD exposure
NOTE: The CCD trigger time is listed in Table 1.
3. 671 nm Laser Preparation
NOTE: A 671 nm single frequency ECDL with 500 mW output power is used to generate the MOT cooling and trapping beams. Another 671 nm ECDL of 35 mW is used for absorption imaging. A digital laser current modulation method (DLCM) is applied for laser frequency stabilization10. The related 6Li energy levels are shown in Figure 3a. Room temperature stability of 20 ± 1 °C is required for the optimal stability of laser frequency locking.
- MOT Laser Preparation
NOTE: The optical setup and relevant results of the DLCM method is presented in Reference 10.- Turn on the 6Li atomic vapor cell heater and warm it up to 340 °C.
- Warm up the laser locking AOM for 1 h.
- Turn on the laser frequency lock controller and open its software. Turn on the laser grating and current modulation of the ECDL in the software.
NOTE: The modulation frequency and amplitude of the grating modulation are set to 5 Hz and 1.0 V respectively. The modulation frequency and amplitude of the current modulation are set to 100 kHz and 0.0015 Vpp respectively to reduce the laser linewidth10. - Turn on the ECDL emission.
NOTE: The laser light passes through the MOT optical setup and reaches the experiment vacuum chamber. - Slightly adjust the current of the ECDL laser manually to tune the laser frequency until the lock-in error signal of the 6Li D2 line is observed, as shown in Figure 3b.
- Set the lock point in the control software to the 22S1/2 (F = 3/2) → 22P3/2 transition (see Figures 3a, 3b). Then lock the laser frequency to this transition, and adjust the lock point to the center of the transition10.
NOTE: Once the laser frequency is locked, the lock-in error signal shows a small fluctuation at the lock point corresponding to the frequency fluctuation around the lock point.
- Imaging Laser Preparation
NOTE: The optical setup and relevant results of the offset locking method are presented in Reference 10.- Turn on the offset locking rf signal generator.
- Turn on the modulation of the grating, and increase the modulation amplitude to 2 V.
- Repeat the frequency tuning process in 3.1.4.-3.1.5. to get the laser frequency beating error signal in the oscilloscope and the rf spectrum analyzer.
- Lock the laser frequency to the beating signal of the offset locking through two PID feedback modules.
NOTE: Once the laser frequency is locked, the spectrum of the beating signal in the rf spectrum will stop at the locking point.
4. Absorption Imaging Preparation
NOTE: The atoms are probed with absorption imaging, which needs two image frames. The first one with the atoms is the signal frame, and the second one without atoms is the reference frame.
- Turn on an APG and the imaging beam AOM.
- Set the imaging pulse duration to 10 µs, and set the separation time between the two imaging frames to 5.5 ms.
- Set the imaging beam intensity to about 0.3Isat, where Isat = 2.54 mW/cm2 is the saturated absorption intensity of the 6Li D2 line.
5. Cooling Atoms with MOT
NOTE: MOT is a widely-used cooling method in ultracold atoms experiments. This section generates a MOT of around one billion 6Li atoms at about 300 µK.
- Slow Atom Source
- Turn on the oven heaters.
- After the oven temperatures reach the operational region (refer to Table 2), turn on the cooling fans for the Zeeman slower. Then slowly increase the current of the slower to 9.2 A. Turn on the current of the two crossover coils to 7 A and 1 A respectively.
NOTE: The temperature distribution of the oven listed in Table 2 is optimized for collimation and lifetime of the atomic source12. The location of the heaters on the oven is shown in Figure 4. - Unblock the Zeeman slower laser beam manually by opening the atomic shutter. Set the frequency of the laser beam to 192 MHz red-detuned with the 22S1/2 (F = 3/2) → 22P3/2 transition.
NOTE: With this setup, the speed of the atoms is slowed down from 1,400 m/s to 100 m/s. The Zeeman slower is shown in Figure 5.
- Magnetic Field Gradient
NOTE: This apparatus uses a pair of coils controlled by an H-bridge switch circuit to produce either an anti-Helmholtz or Helmholtz magnetic field. The coils are water cooled to prevent overheating.- Slowly turn on the water flow to 6 gal/min.
- Set the H-bridge for anti-Helmholtz magnetic field configuration by running the timing control program with the MOT loading timing file.
- Turn on the magnets' power supplies, and set the current of each coil to about 18 A via its control program, which creates a magnetic field gradient of about 22 G/cm for the MOT.
NOTE: A static MOT is observed in the experiment chamber after the magnetic field gradient is turned on.
- Dynamic MOT
NOTE: The optical setup of the 6Li MOT contains three pairs of counter propagating MOT beams with all pairs orthogonal to each other. Each MOT beam includes a cooling beam and a repumping beam. The intensities and frequency detunings of the beams, which are controlled by AOMs, are varied for the three phases. The control voltages of the AOMs are set via multiplexer circuits commanded by a timing control system. The parameters for three phases are listed in Table 3. The optical layout of the MOT beams is shown in Figure 6.- Load, compile and run the experiment timing file in the timing control program on a loop with the software control. The experiment timing starts with the MOT loading phase. Monitor the MOT fluorescence signal in the photodetector to reach 2 V, which indicates around 109 atoms in the MOT.
NOTE: The fluorescence of the MOT is collected by a lens with spatial angle of about 10-4 rad. The loading phase atom number can be calculated by the method in Reference 13. - Use the optical shutter to block the slowing beam before the loading phase ends.
NOTE: The timing of the slowing beam shutter is also under control of the experiment timing, which is listed in Table 1. - Set intensities and frequency detunings of the MOT laser beams according to Table 3 for the cooling phase.
NOTE: After the cooling phase, the temperature of the MOT is reduced to about 300 µK. - For the pumping phase, program the experiment timing file to turn off the repumping beams with the AOM.
NOTE: The pumping phase pumps all the atoms into the lowest hyperfine states 22S1/2 (F = 1/2). - Turn off the MOT beams and shift the laser frequency 30 MHz below the atomic transition resonance by AOM, and block the leaking light from the AOMs with optical shutters.
NOTE: After the MOT stage, any leakage of the resonant light to the atomic cloud will result in atom loss. The timing of the AOM control and MOT beam shutter are all listed in Table 1. - After the dynamic MOT, acquire the imaging frames from the camera. Get the absorption imaging of the MOT.
NOTE: The atomic number of the MOT is about 107 after the pumping phase. A typical absorption image of the MOT is shown in Figure 7a.
- Load, compile and run the experiment timing file in the timing control program on a loop with the software control. The experiment timing starts with the MOT loading phase. Monitor the MOT fluorescence signal in the photodetector to reach 2 V, which indicates around 109 atoms in the MOT.
6. Preparing an Ultracold Fermi Gas with ODT
- Optical Dipole Trap
NOTE: ODT is the main tool to generate ultracold Fermi gases. In order to generate a deep ODT, a fiber laser with 100 W emission power at 1064 nm wavelength is used. The setup of ODT is shown in Figure 8.- Turn on the water flow for cooling the laser beam dumps.
- Set the ODT AOM control voltage to 1 V manually. Turn on the fiber laser with 13 W emission power.
- Check the ODT optics with an infrared light viewer, and remove any dust with argon gas flow.
NOTE: Dust on the optics can change the spatial profile of the ODT, and cause instability of the ODT. - Command the fiber laser AFG to generate a laser pulse via the AFG control program.
NOTE: The output of the laser pulse is triggered by the experiment timing, and the starting time of this pulse is set to 14 ms before the end of the MOT loading phase. The pulse sequence control is shown in Figure 1, and the timing is listed in Table 1. - Manually set the ODT AOM control voltage to 8 V (80% of the saturated rf power).
NOTE: The maximum rf power of the AOM driver should be limited to 80% of the saturated power to reduce the thermal lensing effect. - Acquire the absorption images of the MOT and ODT from the camera.
NOTE: Check the overlap of the MOT and ODT through their absorption imaging. Figure 7b shows typical absorption images of the MOT and ODT, respectively.
- Bias Magnetic Field and Spin Mixing rf Field
NOTE: In order to generate an interacting Fermi gas, a bias magnetic field in the vertical direction is applied to tune the s-wave scattering length.- Set the H-bridge in the experiment timing program so that the magnetic field configuration changes from anti-Helmholtz to Helmholtz.
NOTE: The Helmholtz coils generate the bias magnetic field for tuning interatomic interaction. - Set the bias magnetic field to 330 G in channel 2 and 527.3 G in channel 3 of the magnets control program.
- Program the experiment timing sequence to sweep the magnetic field from 0 G to 330 G after the MOT is turned off.
NOTE: This magnetic field sweep prepares a weakly interacting 6Li Fermi gas for standard evaporative cooling. - Program a magnetic field sweep from 330 G to 527 G for a noninteracting Fermi gas14.
NOTE: The magnetic field sequence from 6.2.1-6.2.4. is shown in Figure 1, and the timing is listed in Table 1. - Apply a noisy rf pulse to create a 50:50 mixture of the two lowest hyperfine states 22S1/2(F = 1/2, mF= ±1/2) of 6Li.
- Tune the locked laser frequency resonant with the atoms at 527.3 G (corresponding to the transition 22S1/2 (F = 1/2, mF = -1/2) → 22P3/2 at the low magnetic field) by changing the output frequency of the rf signal generator.
NOTE: The resonant frequency maximizes the atom number of the absorption imaging, which is used to guide the frequency adjustment. Only the spin-down atoms are imaged to present the atomic cloud because the 50:50 spin mixtures are used for the experiment.
- Set the H-bridge in the experiment timing program so that the magnetic field configuration changes from anti-Helmholtz to Helmholtz.
- Evaporative Cooling by Trap Lowering
NOTE: A standard evaporative cooling is used to cool the fermionic atoms of 6Li near the degenerate regime. The first stage of evaporative cooling is controlled by the pulse of the fiber laser and the second is controlled by the ODT AOM. The near-degenerate Fermi gas will be used as the sample for parametric cooling.- Start the first stage of evaporative cooling with the control software by pulsing the fiber laser power, which increases the trap depth of the ODT to U0, then back to 0.1U0 (U0 is the full trap depth with the laser power of 100 W). The total time of this stage is 0.5 s.
NOTE: The pulse duration corresponding to U0 should be limited to 0.5 s to avoid the thermal lensing effect. - Program the ODT AOM with an exponential curve as shown in Figure 1. After the first stage of evaporative cooling is finished, wait 30 ms, and then start the second stage of evaporative cooling by lowering the trap depth from 0.1U0 to 0.01U0 through the ODT AOM. The total time of this stage is 1.5 s.
- Acquire the absorption imaging of the cold atoms after the evaporative cooling.
NOTE: About 105 atoms are left in the ODT after evaporative cooling, which can be calculated from the absorption image.
- Start the first stage of evaporative cooling with the control software by pulsing the fiber laser power, which increases the trap depth of the ODT to U0, then back to 0.1U0 (U0 is the full trap depth with the laser power of 100 W). The total time of this stage is 0.5 s.
7. Parametric Cooling
- Trap Depth Modulation
- Wait 100 ms after the magnetic sweep to 527.3 G. Modulate the trap depth with the ODT AOM by U(tm) = 0.01U0(1+δcos(ωm tm)), where δ is the modulation depth and ωm is the modulation frequency. Set the modulation time tm in the parametric modulation AFG control program. The time sequence of the modulation is shown in Figure 1.
NOTE: This is the key step of implementing parametric cooling. - Program the APG to release the atoms from the ODT by abruptly turning off the trapping beams. Let the gas ballistically expand for 300 µs before applying absorption imaging.
NOTE: The ballistic expansion is used with TOF absorption imaging to get the temperature of the cold atoms. - Acquire the absorption image of the cold atoms after parametric cooling.
- Wait 100 ms after the magnetic sweep to 527.3 G. Modulate the trap depth with the ODT AOM by U(tm) = 0.01U0(1+δcos(ωm tm)), where δ is the modulation depth and ωm is the modulation frequency. Set the modulation time tm in the parametric modulation AFG control program. The time sequence of the modulation is shown in Figure 1.
- Time Dependence Measurement
NOTE: In our previous work7, we found the optimized frequency of the parametric cooling to be 1.45ωx, where ωx is the radial trapping frequency of ODT at 0.01U0. Using this frequency, we can selectively remove high-energy atoms along the axial direction.- Set the modulation depth to δ = 0.5 via the parametric modulation AFG control program.
- Use the external trigger control function of the parametric modulation AFG to change the modulation time from 0 to 600 ms by varying the modulation cycle numbers.
NOTE: With the increasing of modulation time, the size of the atomic cloud will be reduced, especially the axial direction. The relevant results are shown in Figure 9. - Acquire the imaging frames from the camera. Save and analyze the images through the CCD control program.
Representative Results
Using this protocol, we study the dependence of the parametric cooling on the modulation time with the optimized modulation frequency and amplitude, both of which have been determined in our previous publication7. We first prepare a noninteracting Fermi gas of 6Li atoms in the two lowest hyperfine states with a temperature of T/TF ≈ 1.2. Here, TF = (6N)1/3ħω/kB = 5.2 µK is determined with atom number N = 1.7 × 105 per spin and the geometric average trapping frequency ω = (ωxωyωz)1/3 = 2π × (2250 × 2450 × 220)1/3 Hz, ħ is the reduced Planck constant, and kB is the Boltzmann constant. The time-dependent results are shown in Figure 9 with modulation frequency of 1.45ωx, and modulation depth of 0.5. The TOF absorption images of the atomic clouds (Figure 9a) show a significant decrease of the axial cloud size with the increasing of the modulation time, indicating the absolute temperature is continually reduced by parametric cooling.
For quantitatively describing the cooling effect, we use E(x,z)/EF as an effective thermometry for ultracold Fermi gases7, where EF is the Fermi energy and E(x,z) are the atomic cloud energies in the radial and axial directions respectively. We firstly extract the number independent mean square size (NIMS) from the atomic cloud. Then from the NIMS, we calculate E(x,z)/EF in Figure 9b. After about 500 ms modulation, the Ez/EF is reduced significantly from 1.80 to 0.90 and the Ex/EF is slightly increased slightly from 1.20 to 1.25. The decreasing atomic numbers in Figure 9b inset indicate atoms are expelled out of the trap. We find that parametric cooling changes the atomic cloud energy in an anisotropic way, in which the energy in the axial direction is below the Fermi energy while the radial one is still above the Fermi energy. It is noted that the initial unequal energies in axial and radial direction (Figure 9b) is generated by the fast trap lowering applied in section 6.3. After the parametric cooling, the axial direction energy is significantly reduced while the radial energy is barely changed. This result indicates the way that parametric cooling changes the cloud energy is anisotropic. This anisotropic effect is due to the fact that the dominant anharmonicity of the crossed-beam ODT is along the axial direction7. Such thermodynamically anisotropic samples can be used to study thermalization processes in an interacting many-body quantum system.
Figure 1: Ultrahigh vacuum system. The vacuum chamber of the ultracold atom apparatus at IUPUI. 1. oven, 2. Zeeman slower, 3. magnet coils, 4. experiment chamber and 5. CCD camera. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 2: Timing sequence for the parametric cooling. The black curve is the fiber laser power timing. The red curve is one of ODT AOM timing. The cyan curve represents the magnetic field. The orange curve is the TOF imaging pulses. The horizontal axis shows the time scale of each stage. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 3: Atomic levels of 6Li and laser frequency locking spectra. a) 6Li D2 transition for the cooling and repumping beams of the MOT. b) The yellow curve is the Doppler-free saturated absorption spectra of 6Li D2 line, and the red curve is the related lock-in error signal. The left peak is the 22S1/2(F = 3/2) → 22P3/2 transition, the right one is the 22S1/2(F = 1/2) → 22P3/2 transition, and the middle one is the crossover signal of the two transitions. The dash cross is the lock point. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 4: 6Li oven. Each labeled section contains a temperature controlled heating coil for the oven to output the required atomic flux. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 5: Zeeman slower. The crossover coil is the last section of the Zeeman slower. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 6: MOT optical layout. The optical setup for generation of the MOT and slowing laser beams. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 7: MOT and ODT absorption images. a) MOT image after pumping phase. b) The image of the overlapped MOT and ODT. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 8: Crossed-Beam ODT optical layout. The crossing angle of the ODT is 2θ = 12°. The fiber laser AFG controls the pulsing of the laser, the ODT AFG controls the trap lowering curve, and the parametric modulation AFG controls the laser intensity modulation. The beam waist of both beams is about 37 µm. The polarization of the first beam is vertical and the polarization of the second beam is horizontal. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 9: Time dependence measurement of parametric cooling. a) The absorption images of the atomic clouds of various modulation times. b) The dependence of E(x,z)/EF on modulation time (blue circles are for Ez/EF and the red squares are for Ex/EF ). The inset figure is the atom number versus modulation time. Error bars represent one standard deviation. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
| MOT loading on | Start point |
| MOT loading time | 10 s |
| MOT cooling on | MOT loading off |
| MOT cooling time | 5 ms |
| MOT pumping on | MOT cooling off |
| MOT pumping time | 100 μs |
| MOT AOM off | MOT off (The same as MOT pumping off) |
| Zeeman slower beam shutter on | 200 ms before the MOT loading off |
| MOT beam shutter on | MOT off |
| Fiber laser evaporative cooling start time | 14 ms before the end of MOT loading |
| ODT evaporative cooling start time | 500 ms after MOT off |
| H-bridge switch time | MOT off |
| Magnetic field sweep start time (from 0 to 330 G) | MOT off |
| Magnetic field sweep start time (from 330 to 527.3G) | 2,000 ms after MOT off |
| Parametric cooling start time | 2,500 ms after MOT off |
| Imaging pulse trigger time | 3,200 ms after MOT off |
| CCD trigger time | 100 μs before the imaging pulse trigger time |
Table 1: Experimental timing control. Timing sequence parameters to control experimental instruments. The timing sequence starts at MOT loading, cooling and pumping. The MOT off is the time point of after MOT pumping.
| Channel 1 | Channel 2 | Channel 3 | Channel 4 | Channel 5 |
| 348 °C | 354 °C | 434 °C | 399 °C | 372 °C |
Table 2: Oven temperature profile. The 6Li oven operates at optimal flux with the listed temperatures.
| Phase | Loading | Cooling | Pumping | |||
| Beam | Cooling | Repumping | Cooling | Repumping | Cooling | Repumping |
| Detuning from locked transition (MHz) | -28 | -28 | -5 | -5 | -2 | OFF |
| Intensity (Isat) | 2 | 1 | 0.1 | 0.05 | 0.08 | OFF |
Table 3: MOT phases properties. The MOT phase sequence is designed to maximize the number of atoms to be transferred into the ODT.
Discussion
We present an experimental protocol for parametric cooling of a noninteracting Fermi gas in a crossed-beam optical trap. The critical steps of this protocol include: First, the optically-trapped Fermi gas needs to be cooled close to the degenerate temperature by lowering the trap depth. Second, a modulation frequency is chosen that is resonant with the anharmonic component of the trapping potential. Third, the intensity of the trapping beam is modulated to cool the atomic cloud and measure the dependence of the cloud energy on the modulation time.
Compared with the trap-lowering scheme, the parametric cooling scheme provides a selective way to remove high-energy atoms from the optical trap without lowering the trap depth. It helps to increase the phase density and cool a noninteracting Fermi gas. Because such parametric cooling is usually anisotropic, it also provides a convenient method to modify temperature anisotropy in quantum gases.
To enable parametric cooling, the current protocol requires a Fermi gas near the degenerate temperature as the starting point. The cooling effect is also limited to the axial direction of the trapping potential. These two limitations are caused by the finite anharmonicity of the crossed-beam ODT that is made by Gaussian laser beams in the current protocol. To extend this method for different atomic species and apply it for larger temperature range, we need to increase the anharmonicity of the trapping potential.
We propose two improvements for this cooling technique. First, parametric cooling can be implemented with a trapping potential with large anharmonicity in all three directions, such as box traps15 or power-law traps16, which has the potential to directly cool the trapped atoms from the thermal state into the degenerate regime without requiring lowering the optical trap at all. Second, by periodically shaking the optical trapping potential through an AOM17, we can synthesize the optical trap with large anharmonicity using the Floquet method18.
Disclosures
The authors have nothing to disclose.
Acknowledgements
We thank Ji Liu and Wen Xu for involving in the experimental setup. Le Luo is a member of the Indiana University Center for Spacetime Symmetries (IUCSS). This work was supported by IUPUI and IUCRG.
Materials
| 500 mW 671 nm ECDL | Toptica | TA Pro | Quantity:1 |
| 35 mW 671 nm ECDL | Toptica | DL-100 | Quantity:1 |
| 671 nm AOM | Isomet | 1206C | Quantity:3 |
| 671 nm AOM Driver | Isomet | 630C-110 | Quantity:3 |
| 100 W 1064 nm CW laser | IPG photonics | YLR-100-1064-LP | Quantity:1 |
| 1064 nm AOM | IntraAction | ATM-804DA6B | Quantity:1 |
| 1064 nm AOM Driver | IntraAction | ME-805EH | Quantity:1 |
| Arbitrary Function Generator | Agilent | 33120A | Quantity:3 |
| Digital I/O Board | United Electronic Industries | PD2-DIO-128 | Quantity:1 |
| System Design Platform | National Instruments | LabVIEW | Quantity:1 |
| Analog Voltage Output Device | Measurement Computing | USB-3104 | Quantity:1 |
| CCD Camera | Hamamatsu | Orca R2 | Quantity:1 |
| Arbitrary Pulse Generator | Quantum Composer | 9618+ | Quantity:1 |
| Analog Voltage Output Device | Measurement Computing | USB-3104 | Quantity:1 |
| 20 A power supply | Quantity:1 | ||
| 10 A power supply | Quantity:1 | ||
| 120 A power supply | Quantity:2 | ||
| Cooling Fans | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| 671 nm Mirrors | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| 671 nm Half-wave Plate | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| 671 nm Quarter-wave Plate | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| 500 mW Beam Shutter | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| 671 nm Lenses | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| Faraday Isolator | Quantity: 2, one for each ECDL | ||
| 671 nm Polarizing Beam Splitter | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| Photodetector | Thorlabs | SM05PD1A | Quantity:1 |
| Multiplexer | Analog Devices | ADG409 | Quantity: 1 |
| Multiplexer | Analog Devices | ADG408 | Quantity: 2 |
| 1064 nm plano-concave lens | Quantity:1 for beam reducer | ||
| 1064 nm plano-convex lens | Quantity:1 for beam reducer | ||
| 1064 nm Mirrors | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| 1064 nm Half-wave Plates | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| 1064 nm Lenses | Quantity: depends on apparatus design | ||
| 1064 nm Thin Film Polarizer | Quantity:1 | ||
| 100 W, 1064 nm Beam Dump | Quantity:1 | ||
| 100 W, 1064 nm Power Meter | Quantity:1 | ||
| RF Function Generator | Rigol | DG4162 | Quantity:1 |
| RF Power Amplifier | Mini-Circuits | ZHL-100W-GAN+ | Quantity:1 |
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