arXiv:0811.4456 · Physical Review Letters
Extreme Tunability of Interactions in a Li7 Bose-Einstein Condensate
S. E. Pollack, D. Dries, Mark D. Junker, Y. P. Chen, Theodore A. Corcovilos, Randall G. Hulet
Abstract
We use a Feshbach resonance to tune the scattering length a of a Bose-Einstein condensate of 7Li in the |F=1,mF=1> state. Using the spatial extent of the trapped condensate, we extract a over a range spanning 7 decades from small attractive interactions to extremely strong repulsive interactions. The shallow zero crossing in the wing of the Feshbach resonance enables the determination of a as small as 0.01 Bohr radii. Evidence of the weak anisotropic magnetic dipole interaction is obtained by comparison with different trap geometries for small a.