We investigate the time evolution of the momentum of an impurity atom injected into a degenerate Tonks-Girardeau gas. We establish that given an initial momentum ${p}_{0}$ the impurity relaxes to a steady state with a nonvanishing momentum ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}.$ The nature of the steady state is found to depend drastically on whether the masses of the impurity and the host are equal. This is due to multiple coherent scattering processes leading to a resonant interaction between the impurity and the host in the case of equal masses. The dependence of ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}$ on ${p}_{0}$ remains nontrivial even in the limit of vanishing interaction between the impurity and host particles. In this limit ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}({p}_{0})$ is found explicitly.We investigate the time evolution of the momentum of an impurity atom injected into a degenerate Tonks-Girardeau gas. We establish that given an initial momentum ${p}_{0}$ the impurity relaxes to a steady state with a nonvanishing momentum ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}.$ The nature of the steady state is found to depend drastically on whether the masses of the impurity and the host are equal. This is due to multiple coherent scattering processes leading to a resonant interaction between the impurity and the host in the case of equal masses. The dependence of ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}$ on ${p}_{0}$ remains nontrivial even in the limit of vanishing interaction between the impurity and host particles. In this limit ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}({p}_{0})$ is found explicitly.

arXiv:1308.6147Physical Review AApr 14, 201461 citations

Quantum dynamics of a mobile spin impurity

Takeshi Fukuhara, Adrian Kantian, Manuel Endres +9 more

arXiv:1209.6468Nature PhysicsFeb 24, 2013512 citations

We investigate the time evolution of the momentum of an impurity atom injected into a degenerate Tonks-Girardeau gas. We establish that given an initial momentum

{p}_{0}

the impurity relaxes to a steady state with a nonvanishing momentum ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}.$ The nature of the steady state is found to depend drastically on whether the masses of the impurity and the host are equal. This is due to multiple coherent scattering processes leading to a resonant interaction between the impurity and the host in the case of equal masses. The dependence of ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}$ on

{p}_{0}

remains nontrivial even in the limit of vanishing interaction between the impurity and host particles. In this limit ${p}_{\ensuremath{\infty}}({p}_{0})$ is found explicitly.