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arXiv:1705.07367 · Physical Review A

Tuning Feshbach resonances in cold atomic gases with interchannel coupling

Tian-Shu Deng, Wei Zhang, Wei Yi

Published Nov 3, 2017• 10 citations
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Abstract

We show that the essential properties of a Feshbach resonance in cold atomic gases can be tuned by dressing the atomic states in different scattering channels through inter-channel couplings. Such a scheme can be readily implemented in the orbital Feshbach resonance of alkaline-earth-metal-like atoms by coupling hyperfine states in the clock-state manifolds. Using $^{173}\mathrm{Yb}$ atoms as an example, we find that both the resonance position and the two-body bound-state energy depend sensitively on the inter-channel coupling strength, which offers control parameters in tuning the inter-atomic interactions. We also demonstrate the dramatic impact of the dressed Feshbach resonance on many-body processes such as the polaron to molecule transition and the BCS-BEC crossover.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.96.050701

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We show that the essential properties of a Feshbach resonance in cold atomic gases can be tuned by dressing the atomic states in different scattering channels through inter-channel couplings. Such a scheme can be readily implemented in the orbital Feshbach resonance of alkaline-earth-metal-like atoms by coupling hyperfine states in the clock-state manifolds. Using 173Yb^{173}\mathrm{Yb}173Yb atoms as an example, we find that both the resonance position and the two-body bound-state energy depend sensitively on the inter-channel coupling strength, which offers control parameters in tuning the inter-atomic interactions. We also demonstrate the dramatic impact of the dressed Feshbach resonance on many-body processes such as the polaron to molecule transition and the BCS-BEC crossover.
We study ultracold gases of alkali-metal atoms in the quantum degenerate regime. The interatomic interactions in these type of systems can be tuned using resonances induced by magnetic or electric fields. The tunability of the interactions, together with the possibility of confining the atoms with several kinds of external potentials, allows for a completely novel approach to study basic problems in many-body physics, and moreover, allows to enter regimes which have never been accessible in condensed matter or nuclear physics. For example, this has led to the experimental demonstration of an intimate relation between two types of superfluidity: the crossover from Bose-Einstein condensation of tightly bound molecules to the superfluid behavior related to weakly bound BCS-like pairs. Another experimental landmark was reached when the existence of universal Efimov three-body bound states was proven in experiments with ultracold bosonic cesium atoms. In this thesis, we study several aspects of these strongly interacting and ultracold atomic gases. We develop an analytical model that encapsulates all of the relevant scattering physics in atomic systems where open-channel shape resonances and closedchannel Feshbach resonances give rise to complicated and non-trivial scattering properties. This model provides lots of physical insight and is shown to describe important quantities, such as the molecular energies and scattering phase shifts, with a high level of accuracy. The model is compared to full numerical coupled-channel calculations in two atomic systems: rubidium and lithium. We study the BCS-BEC crossover using a many-body description of the ultracold gas that includes the non-trivial energy dependence of the scattering model. We show that it gives rise to superfluid behavior associated with the formation of BCS-like pairs while the low-energy interactions are repulsive in character. The energy dependence of the interactions is crucial, as it gives rise to attractive interactions at the Fermi energy, necessary for the formation of Cooper pairs. We demonstrate new ways of controlling the interatomic interactions using a combination of magnetic and electric fields. This leads to experimental control of, for instance, the three-body parameter in the context of Efimov physics and of non-universal behavior in the BCS-BEC crossover in fermionic gases. Using a four-body method based on first principles, we solve the molecule-molecule scattering problem to calculate several important properties of bosonic and fermionic Summary 145 molecules that consist of light and heavy atoms. These type of molecules are of current experimental interest, and we predict several exciting relations between three- and four-body observables in these type of systems.
The ability to control the interaction strength between atoms within strongly interacting Fermi gases by sweeping a magnetic field across a Feshbach resonance provides a powerful experimental system in which to study many-body physics. One example is the crossover from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) regime, in which the atoms are strongly coupled into pairs, to the weak-coupling regime that mimics Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) coupling of electrons in superconducting metals. Although behavior on either side of the resonance is fairly well understood, of immediate interest is to find out what happens in the BEC-BCS crossover regime. However, determining the relative contributions of atom pairing mechanisms is an experimental and theoretical challenge.
We present a detailed analysis of the two-channel atom-molecule effective Hamiltonian for an ultracold two-component homogeneous Fermi gas interacting near a Feshbach resonance. We particularly focus on the two-body and many-body properties of the dressed molecules in such a gas. An exact result for the many-body T matrix of the two-channel theory is derived by both considering coupled vertex equations and functional-integral methods. Making use of this result allows us to incorporate exactly into the many-body theory the two-body physics of the Feshbach scattering by means of simple analytical formulas without any fitting parameters. New interesting many-body effects are discussed in the case of narrow resonances. We give also a description of the BEC-BCS crossover above and below TC{T}_{C}TC​. The effects of different approximations for the self-energy of the dressed molecules are discussed. The single-channel results are derived as a special limit for broad resonances. Moreover, through an analytic analysis of the BEC limit, the relation between the composite boson of the single-channel model and the dressed-molecule of the two-channel model is established.
The research described in this thesis is part of an international effort with the aim of studying ultracold quantum degenerate gas samples like Bose-Einstein condensates and Fermi degenerate systems, consisting of atoms confined in magnetic or optical traps. The behavior of such samples is governed by the inter-atomic interactions and the resulting properties of the atom-atom scattering. At the relevant temperatures of 1nK to 10µK a key property is the atom-atom scattering length a. In chapter 2 a theoretical method is presented which enables one to describe the interaction and scattering of (ultra)cold atoms to unprecedented precision. It is also unparalleled in comprehensiveness: it allows the prediction of a large and varied set of experimental data for all isotopes of the same element. The method relies on the extraction from experiments of a few (phase) parameters which completely summarize the behavior of the atoms in the (ultra)cold regime. In chapter 3 the method is applied to the "workhorses" of cold-atom physics: the atomic species 85Rb and 87Rb. We extract the foregoing parameters to a very high precision from several recent high precision experiments, allowing us to predict e.g. the 87Rb spinor condensate to be ferromagnetic: a prediction for which the scattering length has to be calculated with a precision better than 1%. We also predict Feshbach resonances at experimentally accessible magnetic field strengths; resonances searched for and found by the experimental group of Rempe. In close collaboration with his group we "fine-tune" the interaction parameters found previously, by making use of only one of the observed resonances. We then obtain agreement with 42 out of the observed 43 resonance field strengths and are able to identify bound states inducing the Feshbach resonances at these locations. Chapter 4 describes the results of this research. With a thorough understanding of the rubidium interactions, we then switch to lithium which has a fermionic (6Li) and a bosonic (7Li) isotope. Both are being used in cold-atom experiments. In chapter 5 we evaluate the interaction parameters for lithium allowing us to predict magnetic field strengths for which a sample of fermionic 6Li atoms can be regarded as strongly interacting. Furthermore, a three-level method for measuring mean-field shifts, based on radio-frequency techniques, is introduced. For weak interactions we find proportionality of resonance shifts to interaction strengths. In the strongly interacting regime, however, these shifts become very small reflecting the quantum unitarity limit and many-body effects. Most interesting is the fact that in this regime the shifts are small both for large positive a and for large negative a, likely reflecting the universality of the interaction energy. In chapters 6 and 7 the interactions between lithium atoms are reinvestigated, making use of newly available experimental data and with the updated interaction parameters special attention is paid to locating field strengths at which magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances occur in the scattering of lithium atoms. In chapter 6 scattering events in a gas of (fermionic) 6Li atoms are studied. In chapter 7 we show that a consistent description of the 6Li+6Li system can be given. We discuss theoretical uncertainties for the position of the wide 6Li Feshbach resonance and present an analytic scattering model for this resonance, based on the inclusion of a field-dependent virtual open-channel state. We predict new Feshbach resonances for the 6Li-7Li system, and their importance for different types of crossover superfluidity models is discussed. Molecules created by magnetically sweeping over these resonances will have a fermionic character. One magnetic field strength is predicted at which two different fermionic molecules can be created simultaneously.
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.
We propose to realize a strongly interacting Fermi superfluid near a narrow Feshbach resonance using the recently discovered ``orbital Feshbach resonance.'' The orbital Feshbach resonance is a type of magnetic field tunable scattering resonance theoretically predicted and experimentally observed recently in the alkaline-earth-metal-like 173Yb^{173}\mathrm{Yb}173Yb atom. We first show that the orbital Feshbach resonance is a narrow resonance in energy, while it is hundreds Gauss wide in terms of magnetic field strength, taking the advantage that the magnetic moment difference between the open and closed channels is quite small. Therefore, this is an ideal platform for the experimental realization of a strongly interacting Fermi superfluid with narrow resonance. We further show that the transition temperature for the Fermi superfluid in this system, especially at the BCS side of the resonance, is even higher than that in a wide resonance, which is also due to the narrow character of this resonance. Our results will encourage experimental efforts to realize Fermi superfluid in the alikaline-earth-metal-like 173Yb^{173}\mathrm{Yb}173Yb system, the properties of which will be complementary to extensively studied Fermi superfluids nearby a wide resonance in alkali-metal 40K^{40}\mathrm{K}40K and 6Li^{6}\mathrm{Li}6Li systems.