This research program focuses on trapping and cooling atomic hydrogen in a simple room-temperature apparatus. Molecular hydrogen is mixed with an inert carrier gas and expanded in the flow of a pulsed supersonic beam. The molecules will be dissociated near the output of the valve. Atomic hydrogen will be stopped with a timed series of pulsed electromagnetic coils, relying on the magnetic moment of hydrogen. This atomic coilgun will be optimized for the case of hydrogen, and an adiabatic coilgun will be constructed in order to enable mode matching to the source. The stopped atoms will be confined in a magnetic trap in a room temperature apparatus, and will be detected using the two-photon 1S-2S transition near 243 nm. Hydrogen will be cooled to near the recoil temperature by single-photon cooling, in a dressed RF magnetic trap.
Atomic hydrogen is the simplest element in the periodic table, yet it has proven extremely challenging to control its translational motion. The standard method of laser cooling has not been possible, due to the lack of an accessible cycling transition. This research program will demonstrate trapping and cooling of hydrogen in a simple room temperature apparatus, using new methods that were successfully applied to other atoms. The broader significance of this work is that it will enable in the future the trapping and cooling of atomic tritium. This is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, and its study can provide important data for nuclear physics. The same techniques can also be applied to anti-hydrogen, and such studies can test basic symmetries between matter and anti-matter.
