Cooling Bose-Einstein condensates below 500 picokelvin

Abstract

Spin-polarized gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates were confined by a combination of gravitational and magnetic forces. The partially condensed atomic vapors were adiabatically decompressed by weakening the gravito-magnetic trap to a mean frequency of 1hertz, then evaporatively reduced in size to 2500 atoms. This lowered the peak condensate density to 5 x 1010 atoms per cubic centimeter and cooled the entire cloud in all three dimensions to a kinetic temperature of 450 ᠸ0 picokelvin. Such spin-polarized, dilute, and ultracold gases are important for spectroscopy, metrology, and atom optics.