Abstract:
Ultracold quantum gases play a pivotal role in many-body physics, quantum sensing, and quantum simulation. Over time, methods such as evaporative cooling in bulk ensembles and precision laser cooling techniques have been employed to achieve quantum degeneracy in atomic gases. The pursuit of a simpler, faster way to form quantum gases thus holds significant promise for advancing the field. In this talk, I will report on our creation of a quantum gas by cooling individual rubidium atoms pinned in a three-dimensional optical lattice using electromagnetically induced transparency and adiabatic expansion. After just 10 milliseconds of cooling, we verify the phase transition from a thermal to a quantum gas by adiabatically transferring the atoms into optical dipole traps. We observe the collapse of atoms in three-dimensional traps, a distinctive hallmark of a quantum gas with negative scattering length. Our results introduce a versatile and fast approach to achieving quantum degenerate gases with minimal time and resource requirements.