%0 Journal Article
%T Thermalization of magnetically trapped metastable helium
%A A. Browaeys
%A A. Robert
%A O. Sirjean
%A J. Poupard
%A S. Nowak
%A D. Boiron
%A C. I. Westbrook
%A A. Aspect
%J Physics
%D 2001
%I arXiv
%R 10.1103/PhysRevA.64.034703
%X We have observed thermalization by elastic collisions of magnetically trapped metastable helium atoms. Our method directly samples the reconstruction of a thermal energy distribution after the application of an RF knife. The relaxation time of our sample towards equilibrium gives an elastic collision rate constant close to the unitarity limit.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0102068v1