The progression from two- through few- to many-body physics is an open and interesting question. Experiments that can test these theories must walk the fine line between cultivating a rich many-body system, yet preventing the interactions from completely destroying the system before study. This thesis explores the two- and few-body interactions present in a resonantly interacting degenerate Bose gas. We explore these interactions as a function of the density of the initial Bose-Einstein condensate. We use loss rates to characterize the interactions and find that a significant portion of the perceived atomic loss is from sweeping the atoms into loosely bound molecules.The decay dynamics identify a molecule mixture of both Feshbach dimers and Efimov trimers
The progression from two- through few- to many-body physics is an open and interesting question. Experiments that can test these theories must walk the fine line between cultivating a rich many-body system, yet preventing the interactions from completely destroying the system before study. This thesis explores the two- and few-body interactions present in a resonantly interacting degenerate Bose gas. We explore these interactions as a function of the density of the initial Bose-Einstein condensate. We use loss rates to characterize the interactions and find that a significant portion of the perceived atomic loss is from sweeping the atoms into loosely bound molecules.The decay dynamics identify a molecule mixture of both Feshbach dimers and Efimov trimers
We convert a strongly interacting ultracold Bose gas into a mixture of atoms and molecules by sweeping the interactions from resonant to weak. By analyzing the decay dynamics of the molecular gas, we show that in addition to Feshbach dimers it contains Efimov trimers. Typically around 8% of the total atomic population is bound into trimers, identified by their density-independent lifetime of about 100 μs. The lifetime of the Feshbach dimers shows a density dependence due to inelastic atom-dimer collisions, in agreement with theoretical calculations. We also vary the density of the gas across a factor of 250 and investigate the corresponding atom loss rate at the interaction resonance.
This thesis presents experiments exploring Feshbach molecules and Efimov trimers in an ultracold Bose-Fermi atomic gas mixture of 40K and 87Rb. These bound states are accessed via scattering resonances, called Fano-Feshbach resonances, which arise as a consequence of a bound state being tuned through degeneracy with the threshold energy of colliding atoms. In addition to allowing the tunability of interactions, the Fano-Feshbach resonance allows for a weakly bound molecule state, called the Feshbach molecule state, to be populated. The efficiency of conversion to the Feshbach molecule state depends upon the rate with which the bound state energy is swept through degeneracy with atomic threshold energy. In regions of large scattering lengths, three-body bound states, called Efimov states, also influence inelastic Bose-Bose-Fermi collisions and boson+molecule collisions in our system. The work presented in this thesis utilizes a magnetically tunable Fano-Feshbach resonance to study Feshbach molecule creation in the perturbative limit (the limit of fast magnetic-field sweeps) and the saturated limit (the limit of slow sweeps), where a phenomenological model is applied to understand the conversion efficiency as well as the quantum degeneracy of the molecules. In addition, I present a study of boson+molecule collision rates and Bose-Bose-Fermi collision rates in order to observe signatures of Efimov states and compare against results in the gas mixture 41K-87Rb to address the question of universality of the three-body parameter in heteronuclear gas mixtures.
Advances in trapping and cooling of ultracold gases over the last several decades have made it possible to test many formerly outstanding predictions from disparate branches of physics. This thesis touches on three historical problems that have found new life recently in the context of ultracold Bose gases of alkali atoms. The first problem revolves around an outstanding prediction from Boltzmann over a century and half old that the breathing mode of a isotropically trapped classical gas should oscillate indefinitely. I analyze recent experimental results [Nat. Phys. 11, 1009 (2015)], and attribute observed damping sources to trap imperfections. The second question is about the analogue of first and second sound modes from liquid helium in trapped dilute gases. I present the results of a joint theoretical/experimental investigation of the breathing mode of a finite temperature Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), attributing a striking collapse revival behavior of the resultant oscillation to in-phase and out-of-phase normal modes of the thermal cloud and condensate. The third problem is that of the formation of Borromean ring-like three-body bound states, referred to as Efimov trimers, in strongly-interacting few-body systems. I extend the predicted spectrum of Efimov states into the realm of many degenerate internal levels, and investigate the difficult three-body elastic scattering problem.\nThese questions are part of the broader theme of this thesis: How can our understanding of few-body physics in the ultracold limit be translated into statements about the bulk behavior of an ultracold gas? For weakly-interacting Bose gases, this translation is well-known: the many-body properties of the gas are well-described by the tracking just the one and two particle correlations. I analyze a generalization of this procedure to higher order correlations, the general connection between few-body physics and correlations in a dilute gas, and results for the emergence of Efimov physics in the magnetic phase of the strongly-interacting Bose gas.
In the wake of successful experiments in Fermi condensates, experimental attention is broadening to include resonant interactions in degenerate Bose-Fermi mixtures. In this thesis we wish to study the equilibrium properties of the fermionic molecules that can be created in such a mixture. To this end, we first discuss the two body properties of the system, and introduce the model Hamiltonian we use to describe the resonant physics, highlighting its virtues, as well as its limitations. We then proceed by analyzing the mean field solution of this model, by studying both the equilibrium problem, and the non-equilibrium equations of motion, thus developing a powerful language to discuss the system. We then highlight the limitations of the mean-field approach, and develop a numerically tractable generalized version of this theory, which is able to correctly describe the two-body properties of the system in the low-density limit. Finally, we study the properties of the system using this generalized mean-field theory, by first analyzing the two-body scattering matrix in the many-body environment, assessing its complex poles in order to understand the stability properties of the Feshbach molecules in the gas. Secondly we solve the equilibrium equations self-consistently, to study the molecular populations and density distributions at equilibrium, as a function of external bias magnetic field.
This thesis describes experiments on few-body interactions in a mixture of ultracold bosonic 87Rb and fermionic 40K atoms. Ultracold atoms are celebrated as a platform to explore fundamental quantum physics because their internal states, external potentials, and interactions with each other can be controlled by straightforward electrical and optical tools. In the case of Bose-Fermi mixtures, control comes at the cost of stability when strong interactions give rise to inelastic collisions that destroy the atomic samples. I present detailed measurements of the cross sections for these inelastic processes and discuss how they fit into an emerging pattern of resonances that is leading to better models of few-atom interactions. These phenomena have their roots in universal Efimov physics, which is a paradigm of quantum three-body interactions that was originally inspired by exotic nuclear states. I also discuss several methods to control the formation of KRb Feshbach molecules within the finite lifetime of the interacting K and Rb atomic mixture.
The use of Feshbach resonances in the field of ultracold gases has received a lot of attention recently. In first instance it was realized that these resonances can be used to alter the interaction strength in an atomic gas, by means of tuning an external magnetic field. Furthermore, by sweeping the magnetic field from one side of the resonance to the other, a degenerate gas of bosonic molecules can be created, a significant accomplishment. By making the interactions between fermionic atoms strongly attractive, a fermionic superfluid was recently made, a feat that has drawn a lot of attention in the physics community and from the media. We present work that describes these many-particle systems near a Feshbach resonance in a comprehensive way by using the concept of dressed molecules. These dressed molecules are essentially two-particle states that are a superposition of a tightly bound bare molecule, and two unbound bare atoms. This description reduces to the correct paired wave-function in the two-body limit. Moreover it gives a physically correct description of all the phenomena mentioned above: the Bose-condensation of a gas near a Feshbach resonance, that contains molecules, is more correctly interpreted as a Bose-condensation of dressed molecules. The fermionic superfluid contains a condensate of bosonic pairs, normally called Cooper pairs, that can be understood as the dressed molecules. For the latter case, the dressed-molecule picture also gives an elegant characterization of the crossover between a Bose condensate of pure molecules on one side of the resonance, to a fermionic Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluid on the other side. Then, the dressed molecules change continuously from being mostly a bare molecule, to being mostly a loose pair of two atoms. It is clear that the nature of the dressed molecules is much determined by the probability for it to be in the bare-molecular state. This probability we denote with a single parameter Z. We present various ways of calculating it, and study how it affects the macroscopic physics.