Magneto-optical trapping of bosonic and fermionic neon isotopes and their mixtures: isotope shift of the 3P2 ↔ 3D3 transition and hyperfine constants of the 3D3 state of 21Ne

Abstract

We have magneto-optically trapped all three stable neon isotopes, including the rare 21Ne, and all two-isotope combinations. The atoms are prepared in the metastable 3P2 state and manipulated via laser interaction on the 3P2 ↔ 3D3 transition at 640.2 nm. These cold (T ≈ 1 mK) and environmentally decoupled atom samples present ideal objects for precision measurements and the investigation of interactions between cold and ultracold metastable atoms. In this work, we present accurate measurements of the isotope shift of the 3P2 ↔ 3D3 transition and the hyperfine interaction constants of the 3D3 state of 21Ne. The determined isotope shifts are (1625.9 ± 0.15) MHz for 20Ne ↔ 22Ne, (855.7 ± 1.0) MHz for 20Ne ↔ 21Ne, and (770.3 ± 1.0) MHz for 21Ne ↔ 22Ne. The obtained magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole hyperfine interaction constants are A(3D3) = (−142.4 ± 0.2) MHz and B(3D3) = (−107.7 ± 1.1) MHz, respectively. All measurements give a reduction of uncertainty by about one order of magnitude over previous measurements.