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arXiv:2505.21164 · Physical Review Research

Factor of 1000 suppression of the depolarization rate in ultracold thulium collisions

I. A. Pyrkh, A. E. Rudnev, D. A. Kumpilov, I. S. Cojocaru, Vladimir Khlebnikov, P. A. Aksentsev, Ayrat Ibrahimov, Kirill O. Frolov, S. A. Kuzmin, A. K. Zykova, D. A. Pershin, V. V. Tsyganok, Alexey V. Akimov

Published Feb 2, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Lanthanides are nowadays extensively used to investigate the properties of strongly correlated matter. Nevertheless, exploiting the Zeeman manifold of a lanthanide atom ground state is challenging due to the unavoidable presence of depolarization collisions. Here, we demonstrate that in the case of the thulium atom, it is possible to suppress this depolarization by a factor of 1000 with a carefully tuned magnetic field, thus opening the way for the efficient use of the Zeeman manifold in quantum simulations.

DOI
10.1103/k1mv-1y2j

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We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of angular momentum depolarization in cold collisions of 2P^{2}P2P atoms in the presence of an external magnetic field. We show that collision-induced Zeeman relaxation of Ga(2P1/2)\text{Ga}({^{2}P}_{1/2})Ga(2P1/2​) and In(2P1/2)\text{In}({^{2}P}_{1/2})In(2P1/2​) atoms in cold 4He^{4}\text{H}\text{e}4He gas is dramatically suppressed compared to atoms in 2P3/2{^{2}P}_{3/2}2P3/2​ states. Using rigorous quantum-scattering calculations based on ab initio interaction potentials, we demonstrate that Zeeman transitions in collisions of atoms in 2P1/2{^{2}P}_{1/2}2P1/2​ electronic states occur via couplings to the 2P3/2{^{2}P}_{3/2}2P3/2​ state induced by the anisotropy of the interaction potential. Our results suggest the feasibility of sympathetic cooling and magnetic trapping of 2P1/2{^{2}P}_{1/2}2P1/2​-state atoms, such as halogens, thereby opening up exciting areas of research in precision spectroscopy and cold-controlled chemistry.
Abstract Dipolar ultracold gases are of great interest for quantum simulation experiments. The first step of such a simulation is deep cooling of atoms in a pre-specified internal state. The results of detailed studies of the formation of a spin-polarized cloud of thulium atoms in a dipole trap are presented. We have calibrated the magnetic field by means of radio-frequency Zeeman spectroscopy and measured the polarization of atoms in an optimized trap by the beam expansion method in a magnetic field gradient based on this calibration. We have obtained 1.1 × 106 atoms at a temperature of 27 μK with polarization 〈mF〉 = –3.95 ± 0.12.
Magnetic fields are one of the main tools for controlling the interaction of ultracold atoms using the so-called Feshbach resonances. However, the accurate knowledge of magnetic fields within the high-vacuum chamber is significantly complicated due to the inexact knowledge of the setup geometry, the presence of magnetic parts, and other. In this paper, we demonstrate precision calibration of magnetic fields in the high-vacuum setup using microwave spectroscopy of the ground state of ultracold thulium atoms.
Recently, the thulium atom was cooled down to the Bose-Einstein condensation temperature, thus opening a pathway to quantum simulation with this atom. However, successful simulations require instruments to control and read out states of the atom as well as the ability to control the interaction between either different species or different states of the same type of species. In this paper, we provide an experimental demonstration of high-fidelity (over 93%) manipulation of the ground-state magnetic levels of thulium, which utilizes a simple and efficient design of a microwave (MW) antenna. The coherence time and dephasing rate of the energetically highest hyperfine level of the ground state were also examined.
We present an accurate quantum mechanical study of molecule–molecule collisions in the presence of a magnetic field. The work focuses on the analysis of elastic scattering and spin relaxation in collisions of O 2 ( 3 Σ g – ) molecules at cold (∼0.1 K) and ultracold (∼10 –6 K) temperatures. Our calculations show that magnetic spin relaxation in molecule–molecule collisions is extremely efficient except at magnetic fields below 1 mT. The rate constant for spin relaxation at T =0.1 K and a magnetic field of 0.1 T is found to be as large as 6.1 × 10 –11 cm –3 s –1 . The magnetic field dependence of elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections at ultracold temperatures is dominated by a manifold of Feshbach resonances with the density of ∼100 resonances per Tesla for collisions of molecules in the absolute ground state. This suggests that the scattering length of ultracold molecules in the absolute ground state can be effectively tuned in a very wide range of magnetic fields. Our calculations demonstrate that the number and properties of the magnetic Feshbach resonances are dramatically different for molecules in the absolute ground and excited spin states. The density of Feshbach resonances for molecule–molecule scattering in the low-field-seeking Zeeman state is reduced by a factor of 10.