Strong magnetic compression of spin-polarized hydrogen

Abstract

Fractions of spin-polarized atomic hydrogen gas samples have been compressed magnetically from a low-density buffer volume at 0.25 to 0.5 K into the pole gap of a ΔB≈6T miniature field intensifier. The density of the compressed fraction has been calculated from the observed time evolutions of the buffer volume density and nuclear polarization. It is shown that excessive recombination overheating limits the maximum density to about 2·10 19 cm -3 and thwarts the attainment of Bose condensation.