Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The non-interacting Bose gas
- 3 Atomic properties
- 4 Trapping and cooling of atoms
- 5 Interactions between atoms
- 6 Theory of the condensed state
- 7 Dynamics of the condensate
- 8 Microscopic theory of the Bose gas
- 9 Rotating condensates
- 10 Superfluidity
- 11 Trapped clouds at non-zero temperature
- 12 Mixtures and spinor condensates
- 13 Interference and correlations
- 14 Fermions
- Appendix. Fundamental constants and conversion factors
- Index
3 - Atomic properties
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The non-interacting Bose gas
- 3 Atomic properties
- 4 Trapping and cooling of atoms
- 5 Interactions between atoms
- 6 Theory of the condensed state
- 7 Dynamics of the condensate
- 8 Microscopic theory of the Bose gas
- 9 Rotating condensates
- 10 Superfluidity
- 11 Trapped clouds at non-zero temperature
- 12 Mixtures and spinor condensates
- 13 Interference and correlations
- 14 Fermions
- Appendix. Fundamental constants and conversion factors
- Index
Summary
Atomic properties of the alkali atoms play a key role in experiments on cold atomic gases, and we shall discuss them briefly in the present chapter. Basic atomic structure is the subject of Sec. 3.1. Two effects exploited to trap and cool atoms are the influence of a magnetic field on atomic energy levels, and the response of an atom to radiation. In Sec. 3.2 we describe the combined influence of the hyperfine interaction and the Zeeman effect on the energy levels of an atom, and in Sec. 3.3 we review the calculation of the atomic polarizability. In Sec. 3.4 we summarize and compare some energy scales.
Atomic structure
The total spin of a Bose particle must be an integer, and therefore a boson made up of fermions must contain an even number of them. Neutral atoms contain equal numbers of electrons and protons, and therefore the statistics that an atom obeys is determined solely by the number of neutrons N: if N is even, the atom is a boson, and if it is odd, a fermion. Since the alkalis have odd atomic number Z, boson alkali atoms have odd mass numbers A. In Table 3.1 we list N, Z, and the nuclear spin quantum number I for some alkali atoms and hydrogen.
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- Information
- Bose–Einstein Condensation in Dilute Gases , pp. 40 - 57Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001