A simple, reliable, and no-destructive method for the measurement of vacuum pressure

Abstract

We present a simple, reliable, and no-destructive method for the measurement of vacuum pressure in a magneto-optical trap. The vacuum pressure is verified to be proportional to collision rate constant between cold atoms and background gas with a coefficient k, which can be calculated by simple ideal gas law. The rate constant for loss due to collisions with all background gases can be derived from the total collision loss rate by a series of loading curve of cold atoms under different trapping laser intensities. The presented method is also applicable for other cold atom systems and meets the miniaturization requirement of commercial applications.