APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Meeting Abstracts
Interactions and collective excitations in a SU(N) Fermi gas
Zejian Ren, Bo Song, Chengdong He, Elnur Hajiyev, Entong Zhao, Qianhang Cai, Jeongwon Lee, Gyu-Boong Jo
Abstract
Ultracold fermions with SU(N >2) symmetry offer a unique opportunity to study quantum dynamics and interaction effects in the large spin systems that have no analogue in condensed matter physics. In this poster, we present a set of experiments on the measurement of contact parameters and collective excitations with a SU(N) Fermi gas of 173Yb atoms. First, we explore the short-range interaction effect via Tan’s contact parameters in a multi-component Fermi gas with SU(N >2) symmetry. The s-wave contact parameter is experimentally measured by recording the high-momentum tail of weakly interacting fermions. For a tunable number of spin component N with a fixed number of atoms per component, we verify the linear increase in the contact with N providing experimental confirmation of SU(N) interactions. Furthermore, we explore the momentum distribution of SU(N) fermions at the low momentum regime. Next, we measure collective excitations of a harmonically trapped twodimensional SU(N) Fermi gas. Various collective modes are investigated with a tunable number of spin component N showing a decrease in the ratio of quadruple and dipole mode with N. Our work will pave the way for the experimental study of interacting SU(N) Fermi gases with large spin.