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Updated: Apr 30, 2026

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Neutral gas sympathetic cooling of an ion in a Paul trap
Kuang Chen1, Scott T Sullivan1, Eric R Hudson1
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
Abstract:
A single ion immersed in a neutral buffer gas is studied. An analytical model is developed that gives a complete description of the dynamics and steady-state properties of the ions. An extension of this model, using techniques employed in the mathematics of economics and finance, is used to explain the recent observation of non-Maxwellian statistics for these systems. Taken together, these results offer an explanation of the long-standing issues associated with sympathetic cooling of an ion by a neutral buffer gas.
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