Abstract

Metastable Helium (He^*) is a good candidate to observe Bose-Einstein Condensation (⁴He) and a degenerate Fermi gas (³He). The availability of both a boson- and a termion isotope as well as the good theoretical access makes Helium a promising alternative to the alkalis. A major difference compared to the alkalis is the efficient Penning ionization process that constitutes a loss mechanism as well as a means of detecting He^*. However, Penning ionization can be strongly suppressed in case of spin-polarization (in a magnetic trap). This may provide a way to reach high densities and to enter the regime of evaporative cooling, which is expected to work efficiently in this case [1].

© 1996 IEEE