Evaporative cooling of cesium in a surface trap

Abstract

Summary form only given. Optical dipole traps facilitate storage of atoms independent of their magnetic sub-state. Trapping at high densities is thus not limited by two-body collisions changing the spin state of the atom, which in the particular case of cesium have so far prevented the attainment of Bose-Einstein condensation in magnetic traps. For evaporative cooling of Cs we use the gravito-optical surface trap (GOST) which consists of a horizontal evanescent-wave (EW) atom mirror in combination with a blue-detuned hollow beam (HE) for transverse confinement. Starting conditions for evaporative cooling are prepared by optical cooling, based on inelastic reflections from the EW.