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arXiv:1104.0210 · Physical Review Letters

Measurement of Optical Feshbach Resonances in an Ideal Gas

Sebastian Blatt, Travis Nicholson, Benjamin Bloom, Jason Williams, Jan W. Thomsen, Paul S. Julienne, Jun Ye

Published Aug 12, 2011• 125 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Using a narrow intercombination line in alkaline earth atoms to mitigate large inelastic losses, we explore the optical Feshbach resonance effect in an ultracold gas of bosonic (88)Sr. A systematic measurement of three resonances allows precise determinations of the optical Feshbach resonance strength and scaling law, in agreement with coupled-channel theory. Resonant enhancement of the complex scattering length leads to thermalization mediated by elastic and inelastic collisions in an otherwise ideal gas. Optical Feshbach resonance could be used to control atomic interactions with high spatial and temporal resolution.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.107.073202

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Using a narrow intercombination line in alkaline earth atoms to mitigate large inelastic losses, we explore the optical Feshbach resonance effect in an ultracold gas of bosonic (88)Sr. A systematic measurement of three resonances allows precise determinations of the optical Feshbach resonance strength and scaling law, in agreement with coupled-channel theory. Resonant enhancement of the complex scattering length leads to thermalization mediated by elastic and inelastic collisions in an otherwise ideal gas. Optical Feshbach resonance could be used to control atomic interactions with high spatial and temporal resolution.
It is possible to tune the scattering length for the collision of ultracold ground-state alkaline-earth-metal atoms using an optical Feshbach resonance. This is achieved with a laser far detuned from an excited molecular level near the frequency of the atomic intercombination transition. Simple resonant-scattering theory, illustrated by the example of , allows an estimate of the magnitude of the effect. Unlike alkali metal species, large changes of the scattering length are possible while atom loss remains small, because of the very narrow linewidth of the molecular photoassociation transition. This raises prospects for control of atomic interactions for a system without magnetically tunable Feshbach resonance levels.
Ultracold atomic gases with tunable interactions offer an ideal platform for studying interacting quantum matter. While the few- and many-body physics are generally complex and intractable, the problem can be greatly simplified in an atomic gas by a controlled separation of relevant length and energy scales. Precise control of experimental parameters, via Feshbach resonances, optical potentials and radio-frequency radiation, enables deterministic measurements of few-body physics, including universal physics and the Efimov effect. In this thesis, I present our recent studies on precisely measuring two- and three-body physics in an ultracold Bose gas. I begin by describing our new apparatus used for generating and studying ultracold 39K gas samples. Then, I focus on our precision spectroscopy of Feshbach dimer binding energies, spanning three orders of magnitude and with sub-kilohertz resolution. These measurements enable us to locate a Feshbach resonance and determine scattering length values with unprecedented accuracy. Finally, I present our precise measurements locating an exotic three-body state, specifically the Efimov ground state. We find that the trimer state location significantly deviates from the value predicted by van der Waals universality. Due to small experimental and systematic uncertainties, our measurement is the strongest evidence of departure from the universal value and is the first observed deviation near a Feshbach resonance of intermediate strength.
This thesis reports on the first observation of optical tuning of interactions in an ultracold atomic gas. To control the elastic interactions, we use optically induced scattering resonances. They are realized by coupling pairs of atoms to a bound molecular state with the help of laser light. In comparison to the well-known magnetic Feshbach resonances, these optical Feshbach resonances allow a very fast switching of interactions in a spatially resolved way. This is because laser light can be switched on and off much faster than magnetic fields and because the light intensity can be spatially structured. Our experiments are performed with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of Rb atoms, which we produce in our new BEC setup. This apparatus has been constructed in the framework of this thesis and offers excellent optical access to the ultracold atom cloud. To investigate the tunability of atomic interactions with single-frequency laser light, we optically couple pairs of free atoms to an electronically excited molecular state. The coupling is achieved with a laser that is tuned close to the respective free-bound photoassociation transition. By changing the laser detuning we are able to adjust the atomic scattering length to any value between 10 a0 and 190 a0, where a0 denotes the Bohr radius. The atomic scattering length is a single quantity that fully describes ultracold elastic interactions. Since laser induced atom losses restrict the duration of our experiments, Bragg spectroscopy is employed as a fast method to measure the scattering length. We also demonstrate that optical Feshbach resonances can be realized with a two-color Raman coupling scheme. To implement this scheme, a second laser is added that couples the excited molecular state to a weakly bound molecular level in a ground state potential. Tuning the second laser results in a modification of the atomic scattering length similar to the one observed with a single laser. In addition, this scheme allows to control the width of the resonance via the detuning of the first laser. For the one-color and two-color coupling schemes, we investigate how the elastic scattering properties depend on the different available parameters, i.e. the laser detunings and intensities. Our experimental findings can successfully be described with an available theoretical model, which treats ultracold collisions in the presence of laser light. Optical Feshbach resonances have the possibility of becoming a valuable tool for fast switching of interactions. This is of special interest in quantum computation schemes with neutral atoms, where interactions between different atomic qubits need to be controlled.
We study ultracold three-body collisions of bosons and fermions when the interatomic interaction is tuned near a narrow Feshbach resonance. We show that the width of the resonance has a substantial impact on the collisional properties of ultracold gases in the strongly interacting regime. From our numerical and analytical analyses, we identify universal features dependent on the resonance width. Remarkably, we find that all inelastic processes near narrow resonances leading to deeply bound states in bosonic systems are suppressed, while those for fermionic systems are enhanced. As a result, narrow resonances present a scenario that is the reverse of that found for broad resonances, opening up the possibility of creating stable samples of ultracold bosonic gases with large scattering lengths.
In the absence of inelastic scattering, Feshbach resonances produce poles in scattering lengths and very large peaks in elastic cross-sections. However, inelastic scattering removes the poles. Whenever the resonant state is coupled comparably to the elastic and inelastic channels, the scattering length exhibits only a small oscillation and peaks in cross-sections are significantly suppressed. A resonant scattering length is defined to characterize the amplitude of the oscillation, and is shown to be small for many collisions of ultracold molecules. The results suggest that cross-sections for some ultracold collision processes will be much less sensitive to details of the potential than has been expected.
Inelastic collisions of ultracold atoms or molecules are analyzed using very general arguments. In free space, the deactivation rate can be enhanced or suppressed together with the scattering length of the corresponding elastic collision via a Feshbach resonance, and by interference of deactivation of the closed and open channels. In reduced dimensional geometries, the deactivation rate decreases with decreasing collision energy and does not increase with resonant elastic scattering length. This has broad implications; e.g., stabilization of molecules in a strongly confining two-dimensional optical lattice, since collisional decay of excited states due to inelastic collisions is suppressed. The relation of our results to the Lieb-Liniger model for bosonic atoms is addressed.