[Historical report created from GSU BEC Homepage:]

"BEC was observed in ⁸⁷Rb, |F, M_F> = |2, 2>, on February 18, 2001, by the Laser Cooling and Trapping Group at the Department of Complex Systems at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel. Our experimental set-up is based on the double MOT scheme. Initially 3 x 10⁸ atoms are loaded into the lower MOT in 50 seconds. Next the MOT is compressed for 30 msec and then a 5 msec polarization gradient cooling stage is applied. 35% of the atoms are loaded from the MOT into the quadropole trap. Our Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap is similar to the QUIC (Quadrupole and Ioffe Configuration) trap developed by the Hansch group. From the quadropole trap the atoms are transfered adiabatically to the Ioffe trap in 1 second. Evaporation is performed by a 22 second logarithmic sweep from 20MHz to 0.5MHz. Absorption imaging of in-situ and time-of-flight atomic clouds are carried out. Currently, the number of atoms in the condensate varies between 10⁴ and 10⁵.

We intend to probe various excitations of the condensate. We also plan to apply "dark traps" (blue detuned) to the condensate, and use this configuration for trapping experiments and ultra-high precision spectroscopy.

The BEC team members are:

• Head: Nir Davidson
• Jeff Steinhauer
• Roee Ozeri
• Nadav Katz
• Rostislav Baron

For more information visit our web site or e-mail:Fedavid@wisemail.weizmann.ac.il "