Eigenface method used in face recognition is introduced to reduce the pattern of interference fringes appearing in the absorption image of cold rubidium atom cloud trapped by an atom chip. The standard method for processing the absorption image is proposed, and the origin of the interference fringes is analyzed. Compared with the standard processing method which uses only one reference image, we take advantage of fifty reference images and reconstruct a new reference image which is more similar to the absorption image than all of the fifty original reference images. Then obvious reduction of interference fringes can be obtained.
We propose a robust scheme that creates a toroidal magnetic potential on a single-layer atom chip. The wire layout consists of two interleaved Archimedean spirals, which avoids the trapping perturbation caused by the input and output ports. By using a rotation bias field, the minimum of the time-averaged orbiting potential is lifted from zero, and then a relatively smooth and harmonic ring trap is formed. The location of the waveguide is immune to the magnetic variations, as it is only determined by the wire layout. The ring waveguide offers an ideal solution to developing a compact and portable atomic Kyroscope.
This paper observes the parametric excitation on atom chip by measuring the trap loss when applying a parametric modulation. By modulating the current in chip wires, it modulates not only the trap frequency but also the trap position. It shows that the strongest resonance occurs when the modulation frequency equals to the trap frequency. The resonance amplitude increases exponentially with modulation depth. Because the Z-trap is an anharmonic trap, there exists energy selective excitation which would cause parametric cooling. We confirm this effect by observing the temperature of atom cloud dropping.
It is demonstrated experimentally that the anharmonic property of the quadrupole trap can be exploited to cool trapped atoms by modulating the trap potential anisotropically. This cooling effect arises from the energy-selective removal of the most energetic trapped atoms and the thermal equilibrium of the remaining atoms. The frequency dependences of the temperature and the fraction of the atoms left in the trap after the modulation are explored. It is also demonstrated that the cooling induced by parametric resonance can also increase the phase space density of the trapped atoms.
