Abstract
We have observed thermalization by elastic collisions of magnetically trapped metastable helium atoms. Our method directly samples the reconstruction of a thermal energy distribution after the application of a RF knife. The relaxation time of our sample toward equilibrium gives an elastic collision rate constant of at a temperature of 1 mK. This value is close to the unitarity limit.
- Received 21 February 2001
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.64.034703
©2001 American Physical Society