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arXiv:cond-mat/0610445 · Physical Review A

Quantum scattering of distinguishable bosons using an ultracold-atom collider

Angela S. Mellish, Niels Kjærgaard, Paul S. Julienne, A. C. Wilson

Published Feb 16, 2007• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We describe an implementation of a magnetic collider for investigating cold collisions between ultracold atomic clouds in different spin states, and we use this to study scattering involving both even- and odd-order partial waves. Our method relies on the axial asymmetry of a double-well magnetic trap to selectively prepare the spin state in each cloud. We measure the energy dependence of $s$, $p$, and $d$ partial-wave phase shifts in collisions up to $300\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$ between $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ atoms in the $5{S}_{1∕2},F=1,{m}_{F}=\ensuremath{-}1$ and $5{S}_{1∕2},F=2,{m}_{F}=1$ states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.75.020701

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We describe an implementation of a magnetic collider for investigating cold collisions between ultracold atomic clouds in different spin states, and we use this to study scattering involving both even- and odd-order partial waves. Our method relies on the axial asymmetry of a double-well magnetic trap to selectively prepare the spin state in each cloud. We measure the energy dependence of sss, ppp, and ddd partial-wave phase shifts in collisions up to 300\ensuremathμK300\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}300\ensuremathμK between 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms in the 5S1∕2,F=1,mF=\ensuremath−15{S}_{1∕2},F=1,{m}_{F}=\ensuremath{-}15S1∕2​,F=1,mF​=\ensuremath−1 and 5S1∕2,F=2,mF=15{S}_{1∕2},F=2,{m}_{F}=15S1∕2​,F=2,mF​=1 states.
We report on the direct imaging of s and d partial-wave interference in cold collisions of atoms. Two ultracold clouds of 87Rb atoms were accelerated by magnetic fields to collide at energies near a d-wave shape resonance. The resulting halos of scattered particles were imaged using laser absorption. By scanning across the resonance we observed a marked evolution of the scattering patterns due to the energy dependent phase shifts for the interfering s and d waves. Since only two partial-wave states are involved in the collision process the scattering yield and angular distributions have a simple interpretation in terms of a theoretical model.
We report on experiments investigating the collisional properties of atoms at ultralow collision energies using an all-optical atom collider. By using a pair of optical tweezers, we can manipulate two ultracold atom clouds and collide them together at energies up to three orders of magnitude larger than their thermal energy. Our experiments measure the scattering of 87 Rb, 40 K, and 40 K- 87 Rb collisions. The versatility of our collider allows us to probe both shape resonances and Feshbach resonances in any partial wave. As examples, we present experiments demonstrating p-wave scattering with indistinguishable fermions, inelastic scattering at non-zero energies near a homonuclear Feshbach resonance, and partial wave interference in heteronuclear collisions.
Ultracold atomic gases have realized numerous paradigms of condensed matter physics, where control over interactions has crucially been afforded by tunable Feshbach resonances. So far, the characterization of these Feshbach resonances has almost exclusively relied on experiments in the threshold regime near zero energy. Here, we use a laser-based collider to probe a narrow magnetic Feshbach resonance of rubidium above threshold. By measuring the overall atomic loss from colliding clouds as a function of magnetic field, we track the energy-dependent resonance position. At higher energy, our collider scheme broadens the loss feature, making the identification of the narrow resonance challenging. However, we observe that the collisions give rise to shifts in the center-of-mass positions of outgoing clouds. The shifts cross zero at the resonance and this allows us to accurately determine its location well above threshold. Our inferred resonance positions are in excellent agreement with theory.Studies on energy-dependent scattering of ultracold atoms were previously carried out near zero collision energies. Here, the authors observe a magnetic Feshbach resonance in ultracold Rb collisions for above-threshold energies and their method can also be used to detect higher partial wave resonances.
Abstract Ultracold atomic gases have realized numerous paradigms of condensed matter physics, where control over interactions has crucially been afforded by tunable Feshbach resonances. So far, the characterization of these Feshbach resonances has almost exclusively relied on experiments in the threshold regime near zero energy. Here, we use a laser-based collider to probe a narrow magnetic Feshbach resonance of rubidium above threshold. By measuring the overall atomic loss from colliding clouds as a function of magnetic field, we track the energy-dependent resonance position. At higher energy, our collider scheme broadens the loss feature, making the identification of the narrow resonance challenging. However, we observe that the collisions give rise to shifts in the center-of-mass positions of outgoing clouds. The shifts cross zero at the resonance and this allows us to accurately determine its location well above threshold. Our inferred resonance positions are in excellent agreement with theory.
This thesis describes experiments investigating the collisions of alkali metal atoms at energies between 10 - 2000 uK, measured in units of the Boltzmann constant. The atoms are accelerated towards each other using a purpose-built collider comprised of a crossed-beam optical dipole trap, which enables us to collide dense ensembles of ultracold atoms in any internal state at relatively high energies. I present the results of two experiments centered around resonant enhancement of the collisions. The first is between homonuclear 40K atoms near a shape resonance where the fermionic nature of the atoms determines the character of multiple scattering effects. The second experiment involves heteronuclear 40K87Rb collisions near a magnetically-tunable Feshbach resonance where we measure parameters describing the resonance as a function of collision energy. Theoretical models are developed that let us describe the collisions using published empirical interaction potentials, and we find good agreement between these models and the experiment.