Fig. 1: Precise atom chip-aided preparation and characterization of a quantum gas in orbit.
From: A space-based quantum gas laboratory at picokelvin energy scales
a Fast transport in the z-direction away from the atom chip of an initially tightly confined, oscillating 87Rb BEC to a weakly confining final trap within a total time tramp. b Applied ramp of the frequency ωz (red) and trap minimum position ztrap (blue) during a typical transport. Exemplary center-of-mass motion (green diamonds) of the BEC after time-of-flight tTOF recorded for the initial trap for varying hold times thold,i (c) and after the transport for varying hold times thold,f (d) or by scanning the free expansion time tTOF after release (e). The initial sloshing (c) is caused by transfer from the facility trap to a simplified two-current ramp trap which is generated by the currents Icoil and Ichip applied to a pair of Helmholtz coils and a z-shaped chip wire (a), respectively. The final sloshing (d) is a measure of the quality of our transport with low amplitudes indicating good performance. Residual magnetic field gradients accelerate the atoms in the F = 2, mF = 2 quantum state during free expansion (e). Fitting (solid lines) a sine (c, d) or a parabola (e) yields the oscillation amplitudes or the release velocity, respectively. Green shaded areas show the 1σ-confidence bounds of the fits and error bars reflect the single-shot detection noise. For more details on the data extraction procedure see the Methods section.
