Machine Learning for Achieving Bose-Einstein Condensation of Thulium Atoms

Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is a powerful tool for a wide range of research activities, a large fraction of which is related to quantum simulations. Various problems may benefit from different atomic species, but cooling down novel species interesting for quantum simulations to BEC temperatures requires a substantial amount of optimization and is usually considered to be a difficult experimental task. In this work, we implemented the Bayesian machine learning technique to optimize the evaporative cooling of thulium atoms and achieved BEC in an optical dipole trap operating near 532 nm. The developed approach could be used to cool down other novel atomic species to quantum degeneracy without additional studies of their properties.