Abstract
We investigate the stability of magnetically trapped atomic Bose-Einstein condensates and thermal clouds near the transition temperature at small distances from a microfabricated silicon chip. For a thick copper film, the trap lifetime is limited by Johnson noise induced currents and falls below 1 s at a distance of . A dielectric surface does not adversely affect the sample until the attractive Casimir-Polder potential significantly reduces the trap depth.
- Received 21 August 2003
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.050404
©2004 American Physical Society