STATISTICAL INVESTIGATIONS ON SINGLE TRAPPED NEUTRAL ATOMS

Single neutral atoms have been stored in a magneto-optical trap and im aged with the help of a CCD camera. The trapping of individual atoms i s marked by steps in the fluorescence signal corresponding to the capt ure or loss of a single atom. The statistics of these capture and loss processes is explained by means of a birth-death model. The spatial d istribution and the trap losses are investigated for the single-atom c ase and compared with the behaviour of a cloud of up to 2.10(5) atoms.