Stability of a superconductive atom chip with persistent current

Christoph Hufnagel, Tetsuya Mukai, and Fujio Shimizu
Phys. Rev. A 79, 053641 – Published 29 May 2009

Abstract

The lifetime of R87b atoms trapped in a z wire trap generated by a closed-circuit superconductive current on a MgB2 strip is measured as a function of the distance between the atom and the strip. The lifetime is found to be longer than 10 s at a distance of 40μm. This value is an order of magnitude longer than the lifetime of a trap generated by a normal current at the same distance. However, it is many orders of magnitude shorter than the theoretical decay rate induced by the spin-flip transition caused by the fluctuation of the current. This shows that for a type-II superconductor the dominant trap loss mechanism is not the spin-flip transition caused by noise as with a normal current atom trap. An analysis of our measurement suggests that magnetic field distortion resulting from flux penetration into the superconductor leads to much faster decay.

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  • Received 25 February 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.79.053641

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Christoph Hufnagel1,2, Tetsuya Mukai1,2,*, and Fujio Shimizu1,2,3

  • 1NTT Basic Research Laboratories, NTT Corporation, 3-1 Morinosato-Wakamiya, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-0198, Japan
  • 2CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency, 4-1-8 Honcho, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan
  • 3Institute for Laser Science, University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu, Tokyo 113-8585, Japan

  • *tetsuya@nttbrl.jp

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Issue

Vol. 79, Iss. 5 — May 2009

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