Proposals for improved methods for magnetic trapping and measurements of neutral atoms - art. no. 035401

The magnetic methods most successful so far for tight, stable confinement o f cold neutral atoms in the dark explore three-dimensional-nonuniform magne tic configurations. A different method, using;revolving planar-nonuniform f ields, is developed in the present work. The paper gives an idea of the met hod, describes its basic features, and shows its superiority, such as (i) a greater product of curvatures of the trap well in the three spatial direct ions by a factor of two orders of magnitude given the same magnitude of fie ld gradient, (ii) tight, stable, and more isotropic confinement in both the trap center and an easy-to-change orbit, (iii) vast possibilities to chang e the form of the trap well, and (iv) the possibility to separately detect the effective spin and translational motion temperatures of the cloud via o bservations of its density distribution.