Increasing interest in systems with narrow intercombination lines like strontium (Sr), ytterbium (Yb), and other alkaline-earth metal atoms produced intense work toward cooling them to quantum degeneracy. We observed one of the first Bose-Einstein condensates of bosonic Sr-84. This isotope possesses ideal collisional properties for efficient evaporative cooling to degeneracy despite its unfavorably low natural abundance (0.6%). We were also successful at producing quantum degenerate samples of bosonic Sr-88 and fermionic Sr-87. These dramatic advances were possible largely because of the precise determination of the scattering lengths for all the Sr isotopes with two-photon photoassociation spectroscopy (PAS). Sr quantum fluids foster novel experimental possibilities, such as tuning atom-atom interactions with an optical Feshbach resonance near an intercombination line. Equally exciting theoretical proposals use quantum fluids made of alkaline-earth atoms to demonstrate quantum computation in optical lattices and create exotic quantum magnetism states.


Seminar, February 6, 2012, 15:00. Seminar Room

Hosted by Prof. Morgan Mitchell