Person:

Hancox, Cindy

We have magnetically trapped and evaporatively cooled atomic molybdenum. Using a cryogenic helium buffer gas, 2×10^10 molybdenum atoms are loaded into a magnetic trap at an initial temperature of 500 mK. We measure a molybdenum inelastic rate constant of gin = (1.2±0.6)×10^−12cm^3s^ −1 for the initial conditions after loading. The molybdenum atoms are cooled by adiabatic expansion and forced evaporation to 200 mK.

The Zeeman relaxation rate in cold collisions of Ti 3d(^2)4s(^2)(^3)3F2 with He is measured. We find that collisional transfer of angular momentum is dramatically suppressed due to the presence of the filled 4s^2 shell. The degree of electronic interaction anisotropy, which is responsible for Zeeman relaxation, is estimated to be about 200 times smaller in the Ti-He complex than in He complexes with typical non-S-state atoms.