No Arabic abstract
The capability to tune the strength of the elastic interparticle interaction is crucial for many experiments with ultracold gases. Magnetic Feshbach resonances are a tool widely used for this purpose, but future experiments would benefit from additional flexibility such as spatial modulation of the interaction strength on short length scales. Optical Feshbach resonances offer this possibility in principle, but suffer from fast particle loss due to light-induced inelastic collisions. Here we show that light near-resonant with a molecular bound-to-bound transition can be used to shift the magnetic field at which a magnetic Feshbach resonance occurs. This makes it possible to tune the interaction strength with laser light and at the same time induce considerably less loss than an optical Feshbach resonance would do.
We theoretically investigate the control of a magnetic Feshbach resonance using a bound-to-bound molecular transition driven by spatially modulated laser light. Due to the spatially periodic coupling between the ground and excited molecular states, there exists a band structure of bound states, which can uniquely be characterized by some extra bumps in radio-frequency spectroscopy. With the increasing of coupling strength, the series of bound states will cross zero energy and directly result in a number of scattering resonances, whose position and width can be conveniently tuned by the coupling strength of the laser light and the applied magnetic field (i.e., the detuning of the ground molecular state). In the presence of the modulated laser light, universal two-body bound states near zero-energy threshold still exist. However, compared with the case without modulation, the regime for such universal states is usually small. An unified formula which embodies the influence of the modulated coupling on the resonance width is given. The spatially modulated coupling also implies a local spatially varying interaction between atoms. Our work proposes a practical way of optically controlling interatomic interactions with high spatial resolution and negligible atomic loss.
We use laser light near resonant with an optical bound-to-bound transition to shift the magnetic field at which a Feshbach resonance occurs. We operate in a regime of large detuning and large laser intensity. This reduces the light-induced atom-loss rate by one order of magnitude compared to our previous experiments [D.M. Bauer et al. Nature Phys. 5, 339 (2009)]. The experiments are performed in an optical lattice and include high-resolution spectroscopy of excited molecular states, reported here. In addition, we give a detailed account of a theoretical model that describes our experimental data.
We determine the adiabatic phase diagrams for a resonantly-coupled system of Fermi atoms and Bose molecules confined in a harmonic trap by using the local density approximation. The key idea of our work is conservation of entropy through the adiabatic process. We also calculate the molecular conversion efficiency as a function of the initial temperature. Our work helps to understand recent experiments on the BCS-BEC crossover, in terms of the initial temperature measured before a sweep of the magnetic field.
We determine the adiabatic phase diagram of a resonantly-coupled system of Fermi atoms and Bose molecules confined in the harmonic trap by using the local density approximation. The adiabatic phase diagram shows the fermionic condensate fraction composed of condensed molecules and Cooper pair atoms. The key idea of our work is conservation of entropy through the adiabatic process, extending the study of Williams et al. [Williams et al., New J. Phys. 6, 123 (2004)] for an ideal gas mixture to include the resonant interaction in a mean-field theory. We also calculate the molecular conversion efficiency as a function of initial temperature. Our work helps to understand recent experiments on the BCS-BEC crossover, in terms of the initial temperature measured before a sweep of the magnetic field.
We report on the observation of a mixed spin channel Feshbach resonance at the low magnetic field value of (9.09 +/- 0.01) G for a mixture of |2,-1> and |1,+1> states in 87Rb. This mixture is important for applications of multi-component BECs of 87Rb, e.g. in spin mixture physics and for quantum entanglement. Values for position, height and width of the resonance are reported and compared to a recent theoretical calculation of this resonance.