Magnetic Confinement of Spin-Polarized Atomic Hydrogen

Abstract

Magnetic confinement is used to obtain spin-polarized atomic hydrogen (H\ensuremath{\uparrow}) in an openended helium-coated chamber, at densities up to 0.8\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{17}$ atoms/${\mathrm{cm}}^{3}$. At a field of 10 T and temperature of 0.3 K, confinement times as long as 4 h are achieved. A quantitative study of the confinement times as a function of magnetic field is in excellent agreement with the expected escape from the magnetic potential well accompanied by a very slow loss process. Heat transport measurements confirm that the H\ensuremath{\uparrow} is a gas and an upper limit is placed on the three-body recombination rate.