Towards a juggling 87Rb atomic dual fountain

This paper presents methods for achieving and optimizing a Juggling Atomic Dual Fountain (JADF) of alkali atom Rb-87 with one magneto-optical trap (MOT) vacuum chamber. The height difference of this two atomic fountains is 30 cm, the temperature and atom number of each atomic cloud are 2.0 +/- 0.2 mu K and 1.4(+/- 0.05)x10(8), respectively. The dependence of the recaptured atom number on the height of the pre-launched atomic cloud is investigated. This JADF provides a low temperature, large atom number and common-mode noise elimination atomic source for developing a highly stable, compact atomic gravity gradiometer. (C) 2018 Author(s).