A Moving Magnetic Trap Decelerator: a New Source for Cold Atoms and Molecules

We present a new source of cold paramagnetic atoms and molecules. The paramagnetic particles are cooled during the adiabatic expansion and become entrained in an intense, cold but fast supersonic beam. We efficiently decelerate the paramagnetic particles by trapping them in a co-moving decelerating magnetic trap. Since the particles remain trapped in three dimensions during the deceleration process our method is capable of achieving higher densities limited only by the initial density of a supersonic beam. We present our first results on deceleration in a moving magnetic trap by bringing metastable Neon atoms to near rest.