arXiv:cond-mat/0503206 · Physical Review Letters
Nonlinear Adiabatic Passage from Fermion Atoms to Boson Molecules
E. Pazy, Igor Tikhonenkov, Y. B. Band, Michael Fleischhauer, Amichay Vardi
Abstract
We study the dynamics of an adiabatic sweep through a Feshbach resonance in a quantum gas of fermionic atoms. Analysis of the dynamical equations, supported by mean-field and many-body numerical results, shows that the dependence of the remaining atomic fraction Gamma on the sweep rate alpha varies from exponential Landau-Zener behavior for a single pair of particles to a power-law dependence for large particle number N. The power law is linear, Gamma is proportional to alpha, when the initial molecular fraction is smaller than the 1/N quantum fluctuations, and Gamma is proportional to alpha(1/3) when it is larger. Experimental data agree well with a linear dependence, but do not conclusively rule out the Landau-Zener model.