Non-adiabatic losses from radio frequency dressed cold atom traps

Cold atom traps are a promising tool for investigating and manipulating atomic behaviour. Radio frequency (RF) dressed cold atom traps allow high versatility of trapping potentials, which is important for potential applications, particularly in atom interferometry. This thesis investigates non-adiabatic spin flip transitions which can lead to losses of atoms from RF-dressed cold atom traps. We develop two models for the adiabatic potentials associated with RF-dressed traps, for the cases in which gravity does and doesn't have a significant effect. Within these two models we use first order perturbation theory to calculate decay rates for the number of dressed spin flip transitions per unit time. Our obtained decay rates are dependent on the atomic energy. For RF-dressed cold atom traps in which spin flip transitions lead to losses of atoms from the trap, we are able to predict ow non-adiabatic transitions decrease the trapped atom number. We achieve this by modelling the atomic distribution of energies for several different scenarios. The thesis concludes with a comparison to experimental data, including modelling how atomic energies are affected by noise in the currents generating the trapping magnetic fields.