Realisation of a cold mixture of rubidium and caesium

Abstract

This thesis describes a new apparatus designed to study cold, ultracold, and quantum degenerate mixtures of rubidium and caesium atoms. The Rb- Cs mixture is prepared using a double magneto-optical trap (MOT) system in which a two-species pyramid MOT acts as a source of cold atoms for a 'science' MOT. The first results of experiments on the magneto-optically trapped mixture are presented, including measurements of trap loss rates due to single-species and interspecies inelastic collisions. A technique for reducing interspecies loss by spatially separating the MOTs during loading is described. This technique allows 50-50 mixtures of Rb and Cs atoms to be loaded into a magnetic trap at close to their respective maximum single- species atom numbers. Alternatively, one species can be loaded with arbitrarily small amounts of the other. The displaced MOT technique is thus аn excellent starting point for investigations of interspecies Feshbach resonances and sympathetic cooling of Rb-Cs mixtures in magnetic and optical traps. In addition, a model of polarisation spectroscopy based on numerical integration of population rate equations is described. Theoretical polarisation spectra generated by the model are shown to agree with experimental spectra for the F = I + 1/2 → F' transitions in Rb and Cs. An investigation of the sub-Doppler dichroic atomic vapour laser locking (DAVLL) technique demonstrates how locking signals can be optimised for the Rb D2 transitions. The role of polarisation purity in generating the spectra is discussed, and impurities are modeled using a Jones matrix approach. Comparisons with polarisation spectroscopy and DAVLL are used to enhance understanding of atom-light interactions in spectroscopic systems, and indicate methods for optimising locking signals for use in cold atom experiments.