Continuous loading of a non-dissipative atom trap

Abstract

We study theoretically a scheme in which particles from an incident beam are trapped in a potential well when colliding with particles already present in the well. The balance between the arrival of new particles and the evaporation of particles from the trapped cloud leads to a steady-state that we characterize in terms of particle number and temperature. For a cigar shaped potential, different longitudinal and transverse evaporation thresholds can be chosen. We show that a resonance occur when the transverse evaporation threshold coincides with the energy of the incident particles. It leads to a dramatic increase in phase space density with respect to the incident beam.