We report on the observation of an elementary exchange process in an optically trapped ultracold sample of atoms and Feshbach molecules. We can magnetically control the energetic nature of the process and tune it from endoergic to exoergic, enabling the observation of a pronounced threshold behavior. In contrast to relaxation to more deeply bound molecular states, the exchange process does not lead to trap loss. We find excellent agreement between our experimental observations and calculations based on the solutions of three-body Schrodinger equation in the adiabatic hyperspherical representation. The high efficiency of the exchange process is explained by the halo character of both the initial and final molecular states.
We discuss our recent observation of an atom-dimer Efimov resonance in an ultracold mixture of Cs atoms and Cs_2 Feshbach molecules [Nature Phys. 5, 227 (2009)]. We review our experimental procedure and present additional data involving a non-universal g-wave dimer state, to contrast our previous results on the universal s-wave dimer. We resolve a seeming discrepancy when quantitatively comparing our experimental findings with theoretical results from effective field theory.
Chemical reactions at ultracold temperature provide an ideal platform to study chemical reactivity at the fundamental level, and to understand how chemical reactions are governed by quantum mechanics. Recent years have witnessed the remarkable progress in studying ultracold chemistry with ultracold molecules. However, these works were limited to exothermic reactions. The direct observation of state-to-state ultracold endothermic reaction remains elusive. Here we report on the investigation of endothermic and nearly thermoneutral atom-exchange reactions in an ultracold atom-dimer mixture. By developing an indirect reactant-preparation method based on a molecular bound-bound transition, we are able to directly observe a universal endothermic reaction with tunable energy threshold and study the state-to-state reaction dynamics. The reaction rate coefficients show a strikingly threshold phenomenon. The influence of the reverse reaction on the reaction dynamics is observed for the endothermic and nearly thermoneutral reactions. We carry out zero-range quantum mechanical scattering calculations to obtain the reaction rate coefficients, and the three-body parameter is determined by comparison with the experiments. The observed endothermic and nearly thermoneutral reaction may be employed to implement collisional Sisyphus cooling of molecules, study the chemical reactions in degenerate quantum gases and conduct quantum simulation of Kondo effect with ultracold atoms.
We investigate experimentally the entropy transfer between two distinguishable atomic quantum gases at ultralow temperatures. Exploiting a species-selective trapping potential, we are able to control the entropy of one target gas in presence of a second auxiliary gas. With this method, we drive the target gas into the degenerate regime in conditions of controlled temperature by transferring entropy to the auxiliary gas. We envision that our method could be useful both to achieve the low entropies required to realize new quantum phases and to measure the temperature of atoms in deep optical lattices. We verified the thermalization of the two species in a 1D lattice.
We investigate universal behavior in elastic atom-dimer scattering below the dimer breakup threshold calculating the atom-dimer effective-range function $akcotdelta$. Using the He-He system as a reference, we solve the Schrodinger equation for a family of potentials having different values of the two-body scattering length $a$ and we compare our results to the universal zero-range form deduced by Efimov, $akcotdelta=c_1(ka)+c_2(ka)cot[s_0ln(kappa_*a)+phi(ka)]$, for selected values of the three-body parameter $kappa_*$. Using the parametrization of the universal functions $c_1,c_2,phi$ given in the literature, a good agreement with the universal formula is obtained after introducing a particular type of finite-range corrections. Furthermore, we show that the same parametrization describes a very different system: nucleon-deuteron scattering below the deuteron breakup threshold. Our analysis confirms the universal character of the process, and relates the pole energy in the effective-range function of nucleon-deuteron scattering to the three-body parameter $kappa_*$.
We report on the design, fabrication and characterization of magnetic nanostructures to create a lattice of magnetic traps with sub--micron period for trapping ultracold atoms. These magnetic nanostructures were fabricated by patterning a Co/Pd multilayered magnetic film grown on a silicon substrate using high precision e-beam lithography and reactive ion etching. The Co/Pd film was chosen for its small grain size and high remanent magnetization and coercivity. The fabricated structures are designed to magnetically trap $^{87}$Rb atoms above the surface of the magnetic film with 1D and 2D (triangular and square) lattice geometries and sub-micron period. Such magnetic lattices can be used for quantum tunneling and quantum simulation experiments, including using geometries and periods that may be inaccessible with optical lattice.