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arXiv:1403.7246 · Physical Review Letters

Observation of Efimov Resonances in a Mixture with Extreme Mass Imbalance

R. Pires, Juris Ulmanis, S. Häfner, M. Repp, A. Arias, E. D. Kuhnle, Matthias Weidemüller

Published Jun 25, 2014• 205 citations
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Abstract

We observe two consecutive heteronuclear Efimov resonances in an ultracold Li-Cs mixture by measuring three-body loss coefficients as a function of magnetic field near a Feshbach resonance. The first resonance is detected at a scattering length of a_((0))=-320(10)a_((0)), corresponding to ∼7(∼3) times the Li-Cs (Cs-Cs) van der Waals range. The second resonance appears at 5.8(1.0)a_((0)), close to the unitarity-limited regime at the sample temperature of 450 nK. Indication of a third resonance is found in the atom loss spectra. The scaling of the resonance positions is close to the predicted universal scaling value of 4.9 for zero temperature. Deviations from universality might be caused by finite-range and temperature effects, as well as magnetic field-dependent Cs-Cs interactions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.112.250404

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We observe two consecutive heteronuclear Efimov resonances in an ultracold Li-Cs mixture by measuring three-body loss coefficients as a function of magnetic field near a Feshbach resonance. The first resonance is detected at a scattering length of a_((0))=-320(10)a_((0)), corresponding to ∼7(∼3) times the Li-Cs (Cs-Cs) van der Waals range. The second resonance appears at 5.8(1.0)a_((0)), close to the unitarity-limited regime at the sample temperature of 450 nK. Indication of a third resonance is found in the atom loss spectra. The scaling of the resonance positions is close to the predicted universal scaling value of 4.9 for zero temperature. Deviations from universality might be caused by finite-range and temperature effects, as well as magnetic field-dependent Cs-Cs interactions.
This thesis investigates universal and non-universal aspects of few-body physics in a mass-imbalanced mixture of ultracold bosonic 133^{133}133Cs and fermionic 6^66Li atoms. For this purpose an experimental apparatus for the creation of quantum degenerate gases has been constructed. Using radio-frequency association of weakly-bound LiCs molecules and additional atom-loss spectroscopy we determine the two-body interaction properties between Li and Cs atoms at low collision energies. The analysis with a coupled-channels calculation yields precise singlet and triplet electronic ground state molecular potential curves, from which scattering lengths and positions of Fano-Feshbach resonances are extracted. These results represent almost a tenfold improvement over the previous determination, and are used to study few-body recombination processes and, for the first time, their dependence on the interaction strength between the heavy atoms close to two broad scattering resonances at various temperatures. Measurements of three-body loss rates reveal two series of three and two consecutive LiCs2_22​ Efimov resonances that demonstrate the universal scaling factor 4.9 between the first and second excited state resonances. The ground state resonance deviates from the discrete scaling law. By the use of hyperspherical formalism with either pairwise zero-range or Lennard-Jones model potentials we identify the van der Waals interaction between Cs atoms as a significant source of these modifications.
We experimentally and theoretically study the effect of the intraspecies scattering length onto the heteronuclear Efimov scenario, following up on our earlier observation of Efimov resonances in an ultracold Cs-Li mixture for negative [Pires et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 250404 (2014)] and positive Cs-Cs scattering length [Ulmanis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 153201 (2016)]. Three theoretical models of increasing complexity are employed to quantify its influence on the scaling factor and the three-body parameter: a simple Born-Oppenheimer picture, a zero-range theory, and a spinless van der Waals model. These models are compared to Efimov resonances observed in an ultracold mixture of bosonic 133Cs^{133}\mathrm{Cs}133Cs and fermionic 6Li^{6}\mathrm{Li}6Li atoms close to two Cs-Li Feshbach resonances located at 843 G and 889 G, characterized by different sign and magnitude of the Cs-Cs interaction. By changing the sign and magnitude of the intraspecies scattering length different scaling behaviors of the three-body loss rate are identified, in qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions. The three-body loss rate is strongly influenced by the intraspecies scattering length.
We study Efimov resonances via three-body loss in an ultracold two-component gas of fermionic 6Li^{6}\mathrm{Li}6Li and bosonic 133Cs^{133}\mathrm{Cs}133Cs atoms close to a Feshbach resonance at 843 G, extending results reported previously [Pires et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 250404 (2014)] to temperatures around 120 nK. The experimental scheme for reaching lower temperatures is based upon compensating the gravity-induced spatial separation of the mass-imbalanced gases with bichromatic optical dipole traps. We observe the first and second excited Li-Cs-Cs Efimov resonance in the magnetic field dependence of the three-body event rate constant, in good agreement with the universal zero-range theory at finite temperature [Petrov and Werner, Phys. Rev. A 92, 022704 (2015)]. Deviations are found for the Efimov ground state, and the inelasticity parameter $\ensuremath{\eta}$ is found to be significantly larger than those for single-species systems.
We investigate theoretically and experimentally the heteronuclear Efimov scenario for a three-body system that consists of two bosons and one distinguishable particle with positive intraspecies scattering lengths. The three-body parameter at the three-body scattering threshold and the scaling factor between consecutive Efimov resonances are found to be controlled by the scattering length between the two bosons, approximately independent of short-range physics. We observe two excited-state Efimov resonances in the three-body recombination spectra of an ultracold mixture of fermionic ^{6}Li and bosonic ^{133}Cs atoms close to a Li-Cs Feshbach resonance, where the Cs-Cs interaction is positive. Deviation of the obtained scaling factor of 4.0(3) from the universal prediction of 4.9 and the absence of the ground state Efimov resonance shed new light on the interpretation of the universality and the discrete scaling behavior of heteronuclear Efimov physics.
This thesis reports on the investigation of few-body physics in an \nultracold mass-imbalanced mixture at large scattering lengths. For this purpose, a \nnew apparatus for the creation of quantum degenerate 6Li and 133Cs gases has been \nbuilt. We measure 19 interspecies Feshbach resonances in the two energetically lowest \nhyperfine channels of each species of an ultracold mixture with temperatures on \nthe uK scale. We apply and compare a coupled-channels calculation, the asymptotic \nbound-state model, and the multichannel quantum defect theory for the calculation \nof the Feshbach resonance positions. All models provide a consistent and accurate \ndescription of the two-body scattering resonances in the mixture. Three-body loss \nrate measurements on the negative scattering length side of a broad Feshbach resonance \nin the energetically lowest hyperfine channel at 450 nK reveal two consecutive \nEfimov resonances. The scattering lengths assigned to the two Efimov resonances \nyield a scaling ratio that is consistent with a universal prediction in the zero temperature \nand resonant limit. The presented measurements provide the first test for \nuniversal few-body theories of mixed-species systems with large mass-imbalance.
Recent measurements of Efimov resonances for a number of ultracold atom species have revealed an unexpected universality, in which three-body scattering properties are determined by the van der Waals length of the two-body interaction potential. To investigate whether this universality extends to heteronuclear mixtures, we measure loss rate coefficients in an ultracold trapped gas of 40K and 87Rb atoms. We find an Efimov-like resonance in the rate of inelastic collisions between 40K87Rb Feshbach molecules and 87Rb atoms. However, we do not observe any Efimov-related resonances in the rates of inelastic collisions between three atoms. These observations are compared to previous measurements by the LENS group of Efimov resonances in a 41K and 87Rb mixture as well as to recent predictions.