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Universal loss dynamics in a unitary bose gas

Ulrich Eismann, Lev Khaykovich, Sébastien Laurent, Igor Ferrier-Barbut, Benno S. Rem, Andrew T. Grier, Marion Delehaye, Frédéric Chevy, Christophe Salomon, Li-Chung Ha, Cheng Chin

Published May 20, 2016• 55 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The low-temperature unitary Bose gas is a fundamental paradigm in few-body and many-body physics, attracting wide theoretical and experimental interest. Here, we present experiments performed with unitary 133Cs and 7Li atoms in two different setups, which enable quantitative comparison of the three-body recombination rate in the low-temperature domain. We develop a theoretical model that describes the dynamic competition between two-body evaporation and three-body recombination in a harmonically trapped unitary atomic gas above the condensation temperature. We identify a universal "magic" trap depth where, within some parameter range, evaporative cooling is balanced by recombination heating and the gas temperature stays constant. Our model is developed for the usual three-dimensional evaporation regime as well as the two-dimensional evaporation case, and it fully supports our experimental findings. Combined 133Cs and 7Li experimental data allow investigations of loss dynamics over 2 orders of magnitude in temperature and 4 orders of magnitude in three-body loss rate. We confirm the 1/T2 temperature universality law. In particular, we measure, for the first time, the Efimov inelasticity parameter η*=0.098(7) for the 47.8-G d-wave Feshbach resonance in 133Cs. Our result supports the universal loss dynamics of trapped unitary Bose gases up to a single parameter η*.

DOI
10.6082/69qs2-sqj67

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The low-temperature unitary Bose gas is a fundamental paradigm in few-body and many-body physics, attracting wide theoretical and experimental interest. Here, we present experiments performed with unitary 133Cs and 7Li atoms in two different setups, which enable quantitative comparison of the three-body recombination rate in the low-temperature domain. We develop a theoretical model that describes the dynamic competition between two-body evaporation and three-body recombination in a harmonically trapped unitary atomic gas above the condensation temperature. We identify a universal "magic" trap depth where, within some parameter range, evaporative cooling is balanced by recombination heating and the gas temperature stays constant. Our model is developed for the usual three-dimensional evaporation regime as well as the two-dimensional evaporation case, and it fully supports our experimental findings. Combined 133Cs and 7Li experimental data allow investigations of loss dynamics over 2 orders of magnitude in temperature and 4 orders of magnitude in three-body loss rate. We confirm the 1/T2 temperature universality law. In particular, we measure, for the first time, the Efimov inelasticity parameter η*=0.098(7) for the 47.8-G d-wave Feshbach resonance in 133Cs. Our result supports the universal loss dynamics of trapped unitary Bose gases up to a single parameter η*.
Ultracold gases have become versatile systems to study quantum many-body effects. Their high degree of control and the tunability of the atomic interactions led to important advances in the understanding of strongly correlated matter. In the regime of strong interactions, unlike fermions, the study of bosons is hampered by three-particle recombination that leads to atom losses and keeps the system from reaching a real equilibrium state. In this thesis, we have performed the first quantitative comparison between theory and experiment on the three-particle loss coefficient L_3(a,T), for arbitrary scattering length a and temperature T. For unitary two-particle scattering (|a| → ∞), we show that the three-particle loss coefficient follows the law L_3(∞, T ) = λ_3/T^2, that we have tested using a trapped non-degenerate ^{7}Li gas maintained at constant temperature. The measured value of λ_3 = 2.5(3)_{stat}(6)_{cyst} × 10^{−20}(μK)^2cm^6s^{−1} is, within the error bars in good agreement with the theory prediction λ_3^{th} = 1.52 × 10^{−20}(μK)^2cm^6s^{−1}. We have extended our measurements to arbitrary values of the scattering length a. For a < 0, the theory predicts a smooth connection between the previously derived zero-temperature model for L_3(a, 0) and the unitarity limited loss coefficient L_3(∞, T ). We also show that a second Efimov resonance in 7Li should be observable near a = − 500 a0 for a temperature of 1 μK. Finally, we compare our theoretical prediction with measurements performed at Innsbruck with ^{133}Cs and at Cambridge with ^{39}K. The theory also shows remarkable quantitative agreement with these measurements.
We study Efimov resonances via three-body loss in an ultracold two-component gas of fermionic 6Li^{6}\mathrm{Li}6Li and bosonic 133Cs^{133}\mathrm{Cs}133Cs atoms close to a Feshbach resonance at 843 G, extending results reported previously [Pires et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 250404 (2014)] to temperatures around 120 nK. The experimental scheme for reaching lower temperatures is based upon compensating the gravity-induced spatial separation of the mass-imbalanced gases with bichromatic optical dipole traps. We observe the first and second excited Li-Cs-Cs Efimov resonance in the magnetic field dependence of the three-body event rate constant, in good agreement with the universal zero-range theory at finite temperature [Petrov and Werner, Phys. Rev. A 92, 022704 (2015)]. Deviations are found for the Efimov ground state, and the inelasticity parameter $\ensuremath{\eta}$ is found to be significantly larger than those for single-species systems.
This thesis describes studies of out-of-equilibrium dynamics in an interacting homogeneous Bose gas. We use the versatile platform of an ultracold gas of 39^{39}39K, prepared in an optical box trap. The experiment features both tuneable interaction strengths and a homogeneous atomic density. We examine first a weakly interacting near-equilibrium system, followed by far-from-equilibrium dynamics under moderate interactions, and finally combine strong interactions with highly non-equilibrium dynamics in studies of the unitary Bose gas. We start with a theoretical study of the effects of three-body recombination on the temperature of a weakly interacting, partially condensed gas. Contrary to the expectation of heating, we find that for appropriate values of the condensed fraction and gas parameter, the system temperature is expected to decrease. Not only do we predict lower temperatures, however, but also for the condensate fraction to grow. We then present experiments in which we engineer a far-from-equilibrium momentum distribution, and study the dynamics as the gas relaxes. As the distribution evolves, we observe bidirectional dynamic scaling, with a flow of particles to lower momenta while energy is transported to higher ones. These flows are characterised by spatiotemporal scaling exponents, which we find do not vary appreciably over a range of moderate interaction strengths. Finally, we look to the unitary Bose gas, quenching clouds into the strongly interacting regime. This regime offers insight into universal behaviour that depends only on the interparticle spacing, as well as being an avenue for the study of Efimov physics. However, few things come for free; strongly interacting Bose systems are plagued by high atom-loss and heating rates. We study atom-loss rates and the dynamics of correlations in our gases, isolate the coherent effects from the dissipative ones, and identify a quasi-equilibrium state that features a non-zero condensate fraction.
We report the demonstration of cooling by three-body losses in a Bose gas. We use a harmonically confined one-dimensional (1D) Bose gas in the quasicondensate regime and, as the atom number decreases under the effect of three-body losses, the temperature T drops up to a factor of 4. The ratio k_{B}T/(mc^{2}) stays close to 0.64, where m is the atomic mass and c the speed of sound in the trap center. The dimensionless 1D interaction parameter γ, evaluated at the trap center, spans more than 2 orders of magnitudes over the different sets of data. We present a theoretical analysis for a homogeneous 1D gas in the quasicondensate regime, which predicts that the ratio k_{B}T/(mc^{2}) converges towards 0.6 under the effect of three-body losses. More sophisticated theoretical predictions that take into account the longitudinal harmonic confinement and transverse effects are in agreement within 30% with experimental data.
We study the stability of a thermal (39)K Bose gas across a broad Feshbach resonance, focusing on the unitary regime, where the scattering length a exceeds the thermal wavelength λ. We measure the general scaling laws relating the particle-loss and heating rates to the temperature, scattering length, and atom number. Both at unitarity and for positive a<<λ we find agreement with three-body theory. However, for a<0 and away from unitarity, we observe significant four-body decay. At unitarity, the three-body loss coefficient, L(3) proportional λ(4), is 3 times lower than the universal theoretical upper bound. This reduction is a consequence of species-specific Efimov physics and makes (39)K particularly promising for studies of many-body physics in a unitary Bose gas.
The dynamics of evaporative cooling of magnetically trapped 87Rb{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms is studied on the basis of the quantum kinetic theory of a Bose gas. We carried out the quantitative calculations of the time evolution of conventional evaporative cooling where the frequency of the radio-frequency magnetic field is swept exponentially. This ``exponential-sweep cooling'' is known to become inefficient at the final stage of the cooling process due to a serious three-body recombination loss. We precisely examine how the growth of a Bose-Einstein condensate depends on the experimental parameters of evaporative cooling, such as the initial number of trapped atoms, the initial temperature, and the bias field of a magnetic trap. It is shown that three-body recombination drastically depletes the trapped 87Rb{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms as the system approaches the quantum degenerate region and the number of condensed atoms finally becomes insensitive to these experimental parameters. This result indicates that the final number of condensed atoms is well stabilized by a large nonlinear three-body loss against the fluctuations of experimental conditions in evaporative cooling.