Evaporative cooling of magnetically trapped atomic molybdenum

We have magnetically trapped and evaporatively cooled atomic molybdenum. Using a cryogenic helium buffer gas, 2×10¹⁰ molybdenum atoms are loaded into a magnetic trap at an initial temperature of 500 mK. The molybdenum atoms undergo two-body decay with a measured inelastic rate constant of ${g}ᵢₙ=(1.2±{}0.6)×{}{10}^{{-}12}{{0.3em}{0ex}}{cm}³{{0.2em}{0ex}}{s}^{{-}1}$ for the initial conditions after loading. The molybdenum atoms are cooled by adiabatic expansion and forced evaporation to 200 mK.