Slowing Down, Stopping, and Exploring Atoms with an Atomic Coilgun

Newswise — IOP Publishing is pleased to announce the online publication of "An Atomic Coilgun: Using Pulsed Magnetic Fields to Slow a Supersonic Beam" in the internationally renowned New Journal of Physics. The paper demonstrates how a group of physicists from The University of Texas at Austin have found a way to slow down, stop and explore a much wider range of atoms than ever before.

With atoms and molecules in a gas moving at thousands of miles per hour, physicists have long sought a way to slow them down to a few miles per hour to trap them.

Inspired by the coilgun that was developed by the University's Center for Electromechanics, the group has developed an "atomic coilgun" that slows and gradually stops atoms with a sequence of pulsed magnetic fields.

Dr. Mark Raizen and his colleagues in Texas ultimately plan on using the gun to trap atomic hydrogen, which he said has been the Rosetta Stone of physics for many years and is the simplest and most abundant atom in the periodic table. The article is freely available online at the following link: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1367-2630/9/10/358.

Work on slowing and stopping atoms has been at the forefront of advancement in physics for some time. In 1997, there were three joint-winners for the Nobel Prize in Physics for their combined contribution to laser cooling - a method using laser light to cool gases and keep atoms floating or captured in "atom traps."

These important advances had limited use because they only applied to atoms with "closed two-level transition" excluding important elements such as hydrogen, iron, nickel and cobalt. In contrast, nearly all elements and a wide range of molecules are affected by magnetic forces, or are paramagnetic, which means that this latest research has much wider applicability.

Professor Raizen said, "Of particular importance are the doors being opened for our understanding of hydrogen. Precision spectroscopy of hydrogen's isotopes, deuterium and tritium, continues to be of great interest to both atomic and nuclear physics. Further study of tritium, as the simplest radioactive element, also serves as an ideal system for the study of Beta decay."

Having successfully designed and used an 18-coil device to slow a supersonic beam of metastable neon atoms, the team is now developing a 64-stage device to further slow and stop atoms.

New Journal of Physics, co-owned by the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society, is an open-access, electronic-only journal covering all areas of physics. The content is permanently free to read at http://www.njp.org. IOP Publishing is a not-for-profit learned society publisher, with a reputation for quality and high standards of service. We have a comprehensive range of products serving the physics and physics-related communities, and we are an established leader in the world of scientific journals and electronic publishing. To learn more about New Journal of Physics and other IOP journals, please visit ioppublishing.org.