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arXiv:1511.08744 · Physical Review A

Approach to chaos in ultracold atomic and molecular physics: Statistics of near-threshold bound states for Li+CaH and Li+CaF

Matthew D. Frye, Masato Morita, Christophe L. Vaillant, Dermot G. Green, Jeremy M. Hutson

Published May 23, 2016• 29 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We calculate near-threshold bound states and Feshbach resonance positions for atom--rigid-rotor models of the highly anisotropic systems Li+CaH and Li+CaF. We perform statistical analysis on the resonance positions to compare with the predictions of random matrix theory. For Li+CaH with total angular momentum $J=0$ we find fully chaotic behavior in both the nearest-neighbor spacing distribution and the level number variance. However, for $J>0$ we find different behavior due to the presence of a nearly conserved quantum number. Li+CaF $(J=0)$ also shows apparently reduced levels of chaotic behavior despite its stronger effective coupling. This may indicate the development of another good quantum number relating to a bending motion of the complex. However, continuously varying the rotational constant over a wide range shows unexpected structure in the degree of chaotic behavior, including a dramatic reduction around the rotational constant of CaF. This demonstrates the complexity of the relationship between coupling and chaotic behavior.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.93.052713

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We calculate near-threshold bound states and Feshbach resonance positions for atom--rigid-rotor models of the highly anisotropic systems Li+CaH and Li+CaF. We perform statistical analysis on the resonance positions to compare with the predictions of random matrix theory. For Li+CaH with total angular momentum J=0J=0J=0 we find fully chaotic behavior in both the nearest-neighbor spacing distribution and the level number variance. However, for J>0J>0J>0 we find different behavior due to the presence of a nearly conserved quantum number. Li+CaF (J=0)(J=0)(J=0) also shows apparently reduced levels of chaotic behavior despite its stronger effective coupling. This may indicate the development of another good quantum number relating to a bending motion of the complex. However, continuously varying the rotational constant over a wide range shows unexpected structure in the degree of chaotic behavior, including a dramatic reduction around the rotational constant of CaF. This demonstrates the complexity of the relationship between coupling and chaotic behavior.
Abstract : We explored Feshbach resonances in the collision between ultracold highly-magnetic dysprosium and erbium atoms. The resonance density is orders of magnitude larger than seen in any other previously studied atomic system. Moreover, we showed that these resonance can only exist because of the anisotropic nature of the atom-atom potentials. Analysis of nearest-neighbor spacings between Feshbach resonances shows a chaotic distribution that one would expect from random-matrix theory. We explained these statistics as originating from the large strength of the anisotropy. We demonstrated that the vibrational motion of BaCl+ molecules is quenched by collisions with ultracold calcium atoms at a rate comparable to the Langevin rate. This is over four orders of magnitude more efficient than traditional sympathetic cooling schemes. In addition, we calculated the electronic structure of BaCl+ and other molecular ions. Based on these results we found unusually-large rates for cold charge-transfer reactions between neutral and ionic atoms.
We show that for ultracold magnetic lanthanide atoms chaotic scattering emerges due to a combination of anisotropic interaction potentials and Zeeman coupling under an external magnetic field. This scattering is studied in a collaborative experimental and theoretical effort for both dysprosium and erbium. We present extensive atom-loss measurements of their dense magnetic Feshbach-resonance spectra, analyze their statistical properties, and compare to predictions from a random-matrix-theory-inspired model. Furthermore, theoretical coupled-channels simulations of the anisotropic molecular Hamiltonian at zero magnetic field show that weakly bound, near threshold diatomic levels form overlapping, uncoupled chaotic series that when combined are randomly distributed. The Zeeman interaction shifts and couples these levels, leading to a Feshbach spectrum of zero-energy bound states with nearest-neighbor spacings that changes from randomly to chaotically distributed for increasing magnetic field. Finally, we show that the extreme temperature sensitivity of a small, but sizable fraction of the resonances in the Dy and Er atom-loss spectra is due to resonant nonzero partial-wave collisions. Our threshold analysis for these resonances indicates a large collision-energy dependence of the three-body recombination rate.
Complex quantum systems consisting of large numbers of strongly coupled states exhibit characteristic level repulsion, leading to a non-Poisson spacing distribution which can be described by random matrix theory. Scattering resonances observed in ultracold atomic and molecular systems exhibit similar features as a consequence of their energy level structure. We study how the overlap between Feshbach resonances affects the distribution of resonance spacings. The spectrum of strongly overlapping resonances turns out to be non-Poisson even when the assumptions of random matrix theory are not fulfilled, but the spectrum is also not completely chaotic and tends towards being semi-Poisson.
Abstract We investigate ultracold magnetic-field-assisted collisions in the so far unexplored ErYb system. The nonsphericity of the Er atom leads to weakly anisotropic interactions that provide the mechanism for Feshbach resonances to emerge. The resonances are moderately sparsely distributed with a density of 0.1–0.3 G−1 and exhibit chaotic statistics characterized by a Brody parameter η ≈ 0.5–0.7. The chaotic behaviour of Feshbach resonances is accompanied by strong mixing of magnetic and rotational quantum numbers in near-threshold bound states. We predict the existence of broad resonances at fields < 300 G that may be useful for the precise control of scattering properties and magnetoassociation of ErYb molecules. The high number of bosonic Er–Yb isotopic combinations gives many opportunities for mass scaling of interactions. Uniquely, two isotopic combinations have nearly identical reduced masses (differing by less than 10−5 relative) that we expect to have strikingly similar Feshbach resonance spectra, which would make it possible to experimentally measure their sensitivity to hypothetical variations of proton-to-electron mass ratio.
Within the past five years Albert Einstein's concept of a dilute atomic Bose Condensate has been realized in many experimental laboratories. Temperatures in the nano-Kelvin regime have been achieved using magnetic and optical trapping of laser and evaporatively cooled atoms. At such temperatures the relative de Broglie wavelengths of the gaseous trapped atoms can become long compared to their mean spacing, and through a process of bosonic amplification a "quantum phase transition" takes place involving 10 3 to 10 11 atoms, most of which end up in identical single particle quantum states, whose length scales are determined by the external trap. Rb, Na, Li and atomic H have been trapped at variable densities of the order of 10 13 /cm 3 , and in traps of varying geometries. Of these all but Li have an effective repulsive atomic pair interaction, but utilization of molecular Feshbach resonances allows the interactions of other species to be tuned over wide ranges of strengths, including control of the sign of the effective atomic pair interactions. Fully quantum and macroscopic systems at such low densities are a theorist's dream: simple Hartree type mean field theory provides a startlingly accurate description of density profiles, low energy excitation frequencies, and such a description, commonly called the Non-linear Schrödinger Equation (NLSE) or the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) Equation, will be explored here. The NLSE appropriate for attractive atomic interactions is known to lead to chaotically unstable dynamics, and eventual implosion of the condensate should the local number density exceed a critical value. In this work we illustrate this type of chaotic collapse for attractive condensates, and then explore the types of chaotic dynamics of solitons and vortices, which are the signatures of dynamical non-linearity in the repulsive case. Finally the implications of the symmetry-breaking associated with phase rigidity are explored in model simulations of repulsive condensates: condensates with repulsive atomic interactions break into phase domains when subject to weak shocks and, perhaps surprisingly, break into chaotic "laser-speckle" type patterns as the shock level increases. The fully quantum mechanical NLSE thus displays a full range of chaotic types of motion: from particle-like chaotic collisions of solitons and vortices to fully developed time dependent wave chaos.
We introduce a model to study the collisions of two ultracold diatomic molecules in one dimension interacting via pairwise potentials. We present results for this system and argue that it offers lessons for real molecular collisions in three dimensions. We analyze the distribution of the adiabatic potentials in the hyperspherical coordinate representation as well as the distribution of near-threshold four-body bound states, systematically studying the effects of molecular properties, such as interaction strength, interaction range, and atomic mass. It is found that the adiabatic potential's nearest-neighbor energy level distribution transitions from significant level repulsion characteristic of chaos (Brody distribution) to nonchaotic (Poisson distribution) as the two molecules are separated. For the near-threshold four-atom bound states, the case where all atoms have equal masses shows a Poissonian spacing distribution, while the unequal-mass system exhibits significant level repulsion characterized by a nonzero Brody parameter. We derive a semiclassical formula for the density of states and extract from it simple scaling laws with potential depth and range. We find good agreement between the semiclassical predictions for the density of states and the full quantum mechanical calculations.