Light-assisted collisions between a few cold atoms in a microscopic dipole trap

Abstract : We study light-assisted collisions in an ensemble containing a small number (∼3) of cold 87 Rb atoms trapped in a microscopic dipole trap. Using our ability to operate with one atom exactly in the trap, we measure the one-body heating rate associated with a near-resonant laser excitation, and we use this measurement to extract the two-body loss rate associated with light-assisted collisions when a few atoms are present in the trap. Our measurements indicate that the two-body loss rate can reach surprisingly large values β > 10 −8 cm 3 s −1 and varies rapidly with the trap depth and the parameters of the excitation light.