We report on the experimental observation of a strongly interacting gas of ultracold two-electron fermions with orbital degree of freedom and magnetically tunable interactions. This realization has been enabled by the demonstration of a novel kind of Feshbach resonance occurring in the scattering of two 173Yb atoms in different nuclear and electronic states. The strongly interacting regime at resonance is evidenced by the observation of anisotropic hydrodynamic expansion of the two-orbital Fermi gas. These results pave the way towards the realization of new quantum states of matter with strongly correlated fermions with orbital degree of freedom.
Ultracold molecules have experienced increasing attention in recent years. Compared to ultracold atoms, they possess several unique properties that make them perfect candidates for the implementation of new quantum-technological applications in several fields, from quantum simulation to quantum sensing and metrology. In particular, ultracold molecules of two-electron atoms (such as strontium or ytterbium) also inherit the peculiar properties of these atomic species, above all the possibility to access metastable electronic states via direct excitation on optical clock transitions with ultimate sensitivity and accuracy. In this paper we report on the production and coherent manipulation of molecular bound states of two fermionic $^{173}$Yb atoms in different electronic (orbital) states $^1$S$_0$ and $^3$P$_0$ in proximity of a scattering resonance involving atoms in different spin and electronic states, called orbital Feshbach resonance. We demonstrate that orbital molecules can be coherently photoassociated starting from a gas of ground-state atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattices by observing several photoassociation and photodissociation cycles. We also show the possibility to coherently control the molecular internal state by using Raman-assisted transfer to swap the nuclear spin of one of the atoms forming the molecule, thus demonstrating a powerful manipulation and detection tool of these molecular bound states. Finally, by exploiting this peculiar detection technique we provide first information on the lifetime of the molecular states in a many-body setting, paving the way towards future investigations of strongly interacting Fermi gases in a still unexplored regime.
Ultracold gases of interacting spin-orbit coupled fermions are predicted to display exotic phenomena such as topological superfluidity and its associated Majorana fermions. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a route to strongly-interacting single-component atomic Fermi gases by combining an s-wave Feshbach resonance (giving strong interactions) and spin-orbit coupling (creating an effective p-wave channel). We identify the Feshbach resonance by its associated atomic loss feature and show that, in agreement with our single-channel scattering model, this feature is preserved and shifted as a function of the spin-orbit coupling parameters.
We optimize a collision-induced cooling process for ultracold atoms in the nondegenerate regime. It makes use of a Feshbach resonance, instead of rf radiation in evaporative cooling, to selectively expel hot atoms from a trap. Using functional minimization we analytically show that for the optimal cooling process the resonance energy must be tuned such that it linearly follows the temperature. Here, optimal cooling is defined as maximizing the phase-space density after a fixed cooling duration. The analytical results are confirmed by numerical Monte-Carlo simulations. In order to simulate more realistic experimental conditions, we show that background losses do not change our conclusions, while additional non-resonant two-body losses make a lower initial resonance energy with non-linear dependence on temperature preferable.
A defining property of particles is their behavior under exchange. In two dimensions anyons can exist which, opposed to fermions and bosons, gain arbitrary relative phase factors or even undergo a change of their type. In the latter case one speaks of non-Abelian anyons - a particularly simple and aesthetic example of which are Fibonacci anyons. They have been studied in the context of fractional quantum Hall physics where they occur as quasiparticles in the $k=3$ Read-Rezayi state, which is conjectured to describe a fractional quantum Hall state at filling fraction $ u=12/5$. Here we show that the physics of interacting Fibonacci anyons can be studied with strongly interacting Rydberg atoms in a lattice, when due to the dipole blockade the simultaneous laser excitation of adjacent atoms is forbidden. The Hilbert space maps then directly on the fusion space of Fibonacci anyons and a proper tuning of the laser parameters renders the system into an interacting topological liquid of non-Abelian anyons. We discuss the low-energy properties of this system and show how to experimentally measure anyonic observables.
We analyze a system of two-component fermions which interact via a Feshbach resonance in the presence of a three-dimensional lattice potential. By expressing a two-channel model of the resonance in the basis of Bloch states appropriate for the lattice, we derive an eigenvalue equation for the two-particle bound states which is nonlinear in the energy eigenvalue. Compact expressions for the interchannel matrix elements, numerical methods for the solution of the nonlinear eigenvalue problem, and a renormalization procedure to remove ultraviolet divergences are presented. From the structure of the two-body solutions we identify the relevant degrees of freedom which describe the resonance behavior in the lowest Bloch band. These degrees of freedom, which we call dressed molecules, form an effective closed channel in a many-body model of the resonance, the Fermi resonance Hamiltonian (FRH). It is shown how the properties of the FRH can be determined numerically by solving a projected lattice two-channel model at the two-particle level. As opposed to single-channel lattice models such as the Hubbard model, the FRH is valid for general s-wave scattering length and resonance width. Hence, the FRH provides an accurate description of the BEC-BCS crossover for ultracold fermions on an optical lattice.
G. Pagano
,M. Mancini
,G. Cappellini
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(2015)
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"A strongly interacting gas of two-electron fermions at an orbital Feshbach resonance"
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Leonardo Fallani
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