Abstract

The successful demonstrations of Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) with alkali atoms in a magnetic trap¹ have opened up a new field of quantum physics. The evaporative cooling that enables six-order increase of phase space density is the essential technique for achieving the BEC transition in these experiments. However, at low temperatures, this cooling method is strongly affected by Bose statistics of alkali atoms, since evaporation occurs through the scattering process between trapped atoms. The quantum kinetics of nonequilibrium gas has been the subject of considerable interest.²

© 1998 Optical Society of America