TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES 1999 - NISTIR 6438

Fermi surface. Absorption images of the expanded ultracold Fermi gas are shown at two different temperatures (in false color: white = highest density, blue/black = lowest density). The images are taken after a 15 ms free expansion of the trapped gas, following a sudden release from the magnetic trap. The hotter cloud (left) had 2.5 million potassium-40 atoms at a temperature of 2.4 microKelvin, corresponding to T/T_F = 3.0. The colder cloud (right) had 0.78 million atoms at 290 nanoKelvin, corresponding to T/T_F = 0.5. The radius corresponding to the Fermi energy, E_F = k_BT_F, is marked on each cloud; at T = 0 all of the atoms would lie inside this radius.

TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES 1999 - Contents

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