The Annular Shell Atom Trap (ASAT)

Abstract

In the course of exploring some aspects of atom guiding in a hollow, optical fibre, a small negative potential energy well was found just in front of the repulsive or guiding barrier. This results from the optical dipole and the van der Waals potentials. The ground state for atoms bound in this negative potential well was determined by numerically solving the Schrödinger equation and it was found that this negative well could serve as an atom trap. This trap is referred to as the Annular Shell Atom Trap or ASAT because of the geometry of the trapped atoms which are located in the locus of points defining a very thin annular shell just in front of the guiding barrier. A unique feature of the ASAT is the compression of the atoms from the entire volume to the volume of the annular shell resulting in a very high density of atoms in this trap. This trap may have applications to very low temperatures using evaporative cooling and possibly the formation of BEC. Finally, a scheme is discussed for taking advantage of the de Broglie wavelength to store atoms in a bottle trap based on the inability of long de Broglie wavelengths to escape through a selective de Broglie wavelength filter in the atom bottle trap.