Production efficiency of ultracold feshbach molecules in bosonic and fermionic systems

We investigate the production efficiency of ultracold molecules in bosonic 85Rb and fermionic 40K when the magnetic field is swept across a Feshbach resonance. For adiabatic sweeps of the magnetic field, our novel model shows that the conversion efficiency of both species is solely determined by the phase space density of the atomic cloud, in contrast with a number of theoretical predictions. In the nonadiabatic regime our measurements of the 85Rb molecule conversion efficiency follow a Landau-Zener model.     

Decay of an ultracold fermionic lithium gas near a Feshbach resonance

We studied the magnetic field dependence of the inelastic decay of an ultracold, optically trapped fermionic 6Li gas of different spin compositions. The spin mixture of the two lowest hyperfine states showed two decay resonances at 550 and 680 G, consistent with the predicted Feshbach resonances for elastic s-wave collisions. The observed lifetimes of several hundred ms are much longer than the expected time for Cooper pair formation and the phase transition to superfluidity in the vicinity of the Feshbach resonance.     

Molecule production via Feshbach resonance in bosonic systems

In this article, we review our recent theoretical works on producing ultracold molecules from ultracold bosonic atoms via magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances. Our analysis relies on a two-channel quantum microscopic model that accounts for many-body effects in the association process. We show that the picture of two-body molecular production depicted by the Landau-Zener model is significantly altered due to many-body effects. We derive an analytic expression for molecular conversion efficiency for the nonadiabatic linearly swept Feshbach resonance, that explains the discrepancy between the prediction of the Landau-Zener formula and the experimental data. With including the thermal dephasing effects in the oscillating magnetic field modulation Feshbach resoance, we reproduce the Lorentzian resonance lineshape and explain the maximum conversion efficiency observed in experiment.     

Condensation of pairs of fermionic atoms near a Feshbach resonance

We have observed Bose-Einstein condensation of pairs of fermionic atoms in an ultracold 6Li gas at magnetic fields above a Feshbach resonance, where no stable 6Li2 molecules would exist in vacuum. We accurately determined the position of the resonance to be 822+/-3 G. Molecular Bose-Einstein condensates were detected after a fast magnetic field ramp, which transferred pairs of atoms at close distances into bound molecules. Condensate fractions as high as 80% were obtained. The large condensate fractions are interpreted in terms of preexisting molecules which are quasistable even above the two-body Feshbach resonance due to the presence of the degenerate Fermi gas.     

Collisional stability of fermionic Feshbach molecules

Using a Feshbach resonance, we create ultracold fermionic molecules starting from a Bose-Fermi atom gas mixture. The resulting mixture of atoms and weakly bound molecules provides a rich system for studying few-body collisions because of the variety of atomic collision partners for molecules; either bosonic, fermionic, or distinguishable atoms. Inelastic loss of the molecules near the Feshbach resonance is dramatically affected by the quantum statistics of the colliding particles and the scattering length. In particular, we observe a molecule lifetime as long as 100 ms near the Feshbach resonance.     

Recombination of three ultracold fermionic atoms

Three-body recombination of identical, spin-polarized fermionic atoms in the ultracold limit is investigated using model interactions. The mechanisms for recombination are parametrized by the "scattering volume" V(p) and described in the framework of the adiabatic hyperspherical representation. We have calculated the recombination rate K3 as a function of V(p) and have found K3 proportional, variant |V(p)|(8/3) for small |V(p)|. Recombination near a two-body Feshbach resonance can thus be significant.     

Collisions of ultracold trapped cesium Feshbach molecules

We study collisions in an optically trapped, pure sample of ultracold Cs₂ molecules in various internal states. The molecular gas is created by Feshbach association from a near-degenerate atomic gas, with adjustable temperatures in the nanokelvin range. We identify several narrow loss resonances, which point to the coupling to more complex molecular states and may be interpreted as Feshbach resonances in dimerdimer interactions. Moreover, in some molecular states we observe a surprising temperature dependence in collisional loss. This shows that the situation cannot be understood in terms of the usual simple threshold behavior for inelastic two-body collisions. We interpret this observation as further evidence for a more complex molecular structure beyond the well-understood dimer physics.     

基于方波脉冲外场的超冷原子-分子绝热转化

基于受激拉曼绝热通道技术,研究了方波脉冲外场下的超冷原子-双原子分子转化.运用绝热保真度的方法,详细分析了该原子-分子转化系统相干布居俘获态的动力学演化过程.研究发现,相干布居俘获态的最终绝热保真度随脉冲激光强度的变化呈现出大幅度的周期振荡.这表明本文所设计的方波脉冲方案与高斯脉冲方案相比具有明显的优势,可以在较小的脉冲激光强度下达到较高的绝热保真度并实现较高效率的超冷原子-分子转化.     

Chiral p-wave pairing of ultracold fermionic atoms due to a quadratic band touching

We study the superfuild ground state of ultracold fermions in optical lattices with a quadratic band touching. Examples are a checkerboard lattice around half filling and a kagome lattice above one third filling. Instead of pairing between spin states, here we focus on pairing interactions between different orbital states. We find that our systems have only odd-parity(orbital) pairing instability while the singlet(orbital) pairing instability vanishes thanks to the quadratic band touching. In the mean field level, the ground state is found to be a chiral p-wave pairing superfluid(mixed with finite f-wave pairing order-parameters) which supports Majorana fermions.     

Localization of bosonic atoms by fermionic impurities in a three-dimensional optical lattice

We observe a localized phase of ultracold bosonic quantum gases in a 3-dimensional optical lattice induced by a small contribution of fermionic atoms acting as impurities in a Fermi-Bose quantum gas mixture. In particular, we study the dependence of this transition on the fermionic (40)K impurity concentration by a comparison to the corresponding superfluid to Mott-insulator transition in a pure bosonic (87)Rb gas and find a significant shift in the transition parameter. The observed shift is larger than expected based on a simple mean-field argument, which indicates that disorder-related effects play a significant role.     

Measuring the one-particle excitations of ultracold fermionic atoms by stimulated Raman spectroscopy

We propose a Raman spectroscopy technique which is able to probe the one-particle Green function, the Fermi surface, and the quasiparticles of a gas of strongly interacting ultracold atoms. We give quantitative examples of experimentally accessible spectra. The efficiency of the method is validated by means of simulated images for the case of a usual Fermi liquid as well as for more exotic states: specific signatures of, e.g., a d-wave pseudogap are clearly visible.     

Number statistics of molecules formed from ultracold atoms

We calculate the number statistics of a single-mode molecular field excited by photo-association or via a Feshbach resonance from an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a normal atomic Fermi gas, and a Fermi system with pair correlations (BCS state). We find that the molecule formation from a BEC leads for short times to a coherent molecular state in the quantum optical sense. Atoms in a normal Fermi gas, on the other hand, result for short times in a molecular field analog of a classical chaotic light source. The BCS situation is intermediate between the two and goes from producing an incoherent to a coherent molecular field with an increasing gap parameter. This distinct signature of the initial atomic state in the resulting molecular field makes single molecule counting into a powerful diagnostic tool.     

Bose-Einstein condensation of particle-hole pairs in ultracold fermionic atoms trapped within optical lattices

We investigate the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC, superfluidity) of particle-hole pairs in ultracold fermionic atoms with repulsive interactions and arbitrary polarization, which are trapped within optical lattices. In the strongly repulsive limit, the dynamics of particle-hole pairs can be described by a hard-core Bose-Hubbard model. The insulator-superfluid and charge-density-wave- (CDW) superfluid phase transitions can be induced by decreasing and increasing the potential depths with controlling the trapping laser intensity, respectively. The parameter and polarization dependence of the critical temperatures for the ordered states (BEC and/or CDW) are discussed simultaneously.     

Semiclassical solitons in strongly correlated systems of ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices

We investigate theoretically soliton excitations and dynamics of their formation in strongly correlated systems of ultracold bosonic atoms in two and three dimensional optical lattices. We derive equations of nonlinear hydrodynamics in the regime of strong interactions and incommensurate fillings, when atoms can be treated as hard core bosons. When parameters change in one direction only we obtain Korteweg–de Vries type equation away from half-filling and modified KdV equation at half-filling. We apply this general analysis to a problem of the decay of the density step. We consider stability of one dimensional solutions to transverse fluctuations. Our results are also relevant for understanding nonequilibrium dynamics of lattice spin models.     

Radio-frequency association of molecules: an assisted Feshbach resonance

We develop a theoretical model to describe the radio-frequency (rf) induced coupling of a pair of colliding atoms to a Feshbach molecule when a magnetic field arbitrarily far from the Feshbach resonance is modulated in time. We use the dressed atom picture, and show that the coupling strength in presence of rf is equal to the Feshbach coupling strength multiplied by the square of a Bessel function. The argument of this function is equal to the ratio of the atomic rf Rabi frequency to the rf frequency. We experimentally demonstrate this law by measuring the rate of rf-association of molecules using a Feshbach resonance in d wave collisions between ultra-cold chromium atoms.     

Pure gas of optically trapped molecules created from fermionic atoms

We report on the production of a pure sample of up to 3 x 10(5) optically trapped molecules from a Fermi gas of 6Li atoms. The dimers are formed by three-body recombination near a Feshbach resonance. For purification, a Stern-Gerlach selection technique is used that efficiently removes all trapped atoms from the atom-molecule mixture. The behavior of the purified molecular sample shows a striking dependence on the applied magnetic field. For very weakly bound molecules near the Feshbach resonance, the gas exhibits a remarkable stability with respect to collisional decay.     

Time-dependent analysis of tunneling effect in the formation of ultracold molecules via photoassociation of laser-cooled atoms

The paper contains a time-dependent investigation of the tunneling effect observed in the photoassociation spectrum of Cs₂ and attributed to the 0_g ^-(6s, 6p _3/2) double well. When by photoassociation of two cold cesium atoms a vibrational level of the outer well is populated, tunneling is an efficient mechanism for transferring the population to the inner well (R < 15a ₀), where spontaneous emission may lead to formation of cold molecules in low vibrational levels of the a ³Σ⁺ _u(6s, 6s) electronic state. This tunneling effect is analyzed by wavepackets propagation, first considering the double well potential alone, and following a packet made by a superposition of states initially located at large distances. Characteristic times for the vibration dynamics, corresponding to a beating phenomenon between the two wells, to partial “revival” at large distances, and to maxima in the population localized in the inner well are reported and discussed. Second, we simulate the two-channels a ³Σ⁺ _u(6s, 6s)↦0_g ^-(6s, 6p _3/2) photoassociation at detunings around 2.9 cm^-1: the inner well can be populated either by the excitation of a vibrational level of the external well (resonant excitation), or by tuning the photoassociation laser at the energy of the inner well level which displays tunneling (“off-resonance excitation”). In the first case the photoassociation is efficient, while the tunneling probability is small; in the second, the tunneling probability is large, so that despite the poor efficiency of the photoassociation process, more population can be transferred to the inner well. This second choice is shown to be very sensitive to the laser intensity, which could be used to control the population of the inner well and hence the formation of ultracold molecules in low vibrational levels. Received 19 April 2002 Published online 1st October 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: francoise.masnou@lac.u-psud.fr     

轨道Feshbach共振附近类碱土金属原子的杂质态问题

近年来,碱土金属原子和类碱土金属原子体系的研究成为冷原子物理的研究热点之一.特别是最近在~(173)Yb原子中发现的轨道Feshbach共振,使得研究有强相互作用的碱土金属和类碱土金属原子系统成为可能,极大扩展了此类原子体系的研究范围.本文介绍了~(173)Yb费米气体在轨道Feshbach共振附近的杂质态问题.在此问题中,位于~3P0态的杂质原子与处于基态的背景费米海相互作用,并在费米海表面产生分子态或极化子态.本文使用试探波函数的研究方法,首先对分子态和吸引极化子态进行介绍,并重点描述了分子态与吸引极化子态间的转变.其次归纳总结了排斥极化子态的相关性质,如有效质量、衰变率等.然后考虑双费米面情况,介绍在闭通道中引入另外一个费米面对系统产生的影响.最后简要介绍二维~(173)Yb费米气体中的杂质态问题.     

Preparation of a two-state mixture of ultracold fermionic atoms with balanced population subject to the unstable magnetic field

We report a novel method to prepare a mixture of ~(40)K Fermi gas having an equal population of the two ground magnetic spin states confined in an optical dipole trap, in the presence of an noisy quantization(magnetic) field. We realize the equal population mixture by applying a series of RF pulses. We observe the dependence of the population distribution between two spin states on the number of the applied RF pulses and find that the decoherence effects leading to the population fluctuations are overcome by the high number of RF pules. Our demonstrated technique can be potentially used in the precision measurement experiments with ultracold gases in noisy environments.