corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. A » Volume 72 » Issue 4
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. A 72, 043604 (2005) [6 pages]

Sodium Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice

Download: PDF (271 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

K. Xu*, Y. Liu, J. R. Abo-Shaeer, T. Mukaiyama, J. K. Chin, D. E. Miller, and W. Ketterle†
Department of Physics, MIT–Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Kevin M. Jones
Department of Physics, Williams College, 33 Lab Campus Dr., Williamstown, Massachusetts 01267, USA

Eite Tiesinga
Atomic Physics Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8424, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA

Received 12 July 2005; published 10 October 2005

The phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator has been observed in a 23Na Bose-Einstein condensate. A dye laser detuned ≈5 nm red of the Na 32S→32P1∕2 transition was used to form the three-dimensional optical lattice. The heating effects of the small detuning as well as the three-body decay processes constrained the time scale of the experiment. Certain lattice detunings were found to induce a large loss of atoms. These loss features were shown to be due to photoassociation of atoms to vibrational levels in the Na2 (1)3Σg+ state.

© 2005 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.043604
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.72.043604
PACS:
03.75.Lm, 73.43.Nq, 33.20.Kf, 34.20.Cf

*Electronic mail: kwxu@mit.edu

†Website: cua.mit.edu/ketterle̱group

 
< Previous Article | Next Article >