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Cold atoms probe the magnetic field near a wire

M. P. A. Jones, C. J. Vale, D. Sahagun, B. V. Hall, C. C. Eberlein, B. E. Sauer, K. Furusawa, D. Richardson, E. A. Hinds

cond-matarXiv:cond-mat/0308434

Abstract

A microscopic Ioffe-Pritchard trap is formed using a straight, current-carrying wire, together with suitable auxiliary magnetic fields. By measuring the distribution of cold rubidium atoms held in this trap, we detect a weak magnetic field component ΔBz parallel to the wire. This field is proportional to the current in the wire and is approximately periodic along the wire with period λ=230 μm. We find that the decrease of this field with distance from the centre of the wire is well described by the Bessel function K1(2πy/λ), as one would expect for the far field of a transversely oscillating current within the wire.

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