Heteronuclear molecules in an optical lattice: Theory and experiment

We study properties of two different atoms at a single optical lattice site at a heteronuclear atomic Feshbach resonance. We calculate the energy spectrum, the efficiency of rf association and the lifetime as a function of magnetic field and compare the results with the experimental data obtained for K-40 and Rb-87 [C. Ospelkaus et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 120402 (2006)]. We treat the interaction in terms of a regularized delta function pseudopotential and consider the general case of particles with different trap frequencies, where the usual approach of separating center-of-mass and relative motion fails. We develop an exact diagonalization approach to the coupling between center-of-mass and relative motion and numerically determine the spectrum of the system. At the same time, our approach allows us to treat the anharmonicity of the lattice potential exactly. Within the pseudopotential model, the center of the Feshbach resonance can be precisely determined from the experimental data.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, revised discussion of transfer efficienc

Localization of bosonic atoms by fermionic impurities in a 3d 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 40K impurity concentration by a comparison to the corresponding superfluid to Mott insulator transition in a pure bosonic 87Rb gas and find a significant shift in the transition parameter. The observed shift is larger than expected based on a mean-field argument, which is a strong indication that disorder-related effects play a significant role.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Do mixtures of bosonic and fermionic atoms adiabatically heat up in optical lattices?

Mixtures of bosonic and fermionic atoms in optical lattices provide a promising arena to study strongly correlated systems. In experiments realizing such mixtures in the quantum degenerate regime the temperature is a key parameter. In this work, we investigate the intrinsic heating and cooling effects due to an entropy-preserving raising of the optical lattice potential. We analyze this process, identify the generic behavior valid for a wide range of parameters, and discuss it quantitatively for the recent experiments with 87Rb and 40K atoms. In the absence of a lattice, we treat the bosons in the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov-Popov-approximation, including the fermions in a self-consistent mean field interaction. In the presence of the full three-dimensional lattice, we use a strong coupling expansion. As a result of the presence of the fermions, the temperature of the mixture after the lattice ramp-up is always higher than for the pure bosonic case. This sheds light onto a key point in the analysis of recent experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Density and Stability in Ultracold Dilute Boson-Fermion Mixtures

We analyze in detail recent experiments on ultracold dilute 87Rb-40K mixtures in Hamburg and in Florence within a mean-field theory. To this end we determine how the stationary bosonic and fermionic density profiles in this mixture depend in the Thomas-Fermi limit on the respective particle numbers. Furthermore, we investigate how the observed stability of the Bose-Fermi mixture with respect to collapse is crucially related to the value of the interspecies s-wave scattering length.Comment: Author Information under http://www.theo-phys.uni-essen.de/tp/ags/pelster_dir

Thermal-assisted Anisotropy and Thermal-driven Instability in the Superfluidity state of Two-Species Polar Fermi Gas

We study the superfluid state of two-species heteronuclear Fermi gases with isotropic contact and anisotropic long-range dipolar interactions. By explicitly taking account of Fock exchange contribution, we derive self-consistent equations describing the pairing states in the system. Exploiting the symmetry of the system, we developed an efficient way of solving the self-consistent equations by exploiting the symmetries. We find that the temperature tends to increase the anisotropy of the pairing state, which is rather counterintuitive. We study the anisotropic properties of the system by examining the angular dependence of the number density distribution, the excitation spectrum and the pair correlation function. The competing effects of the contact interaction and the dipolar interaction upon the anisotropy are revealed. We derive and compute the superfluid mass density $\rho_{ij}$ for the system. Astonishingly, we find that $\rho_{zz}$ becomes negative above some certain temperature $T^*$($T<T_c$), signaling some instability of the system. This suggests that the elusive FFLO state may be observed in experiments, due to an anisotropic state with a spontaneously generated superflow.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Ultracold polar molecules near quantum degeneracy

We report the creation and characterization of a near quantum-degenerate gas of polar $^{40}$K-$^{87}$Rb molecules in their absolute rovibrational ground state. Starting from weakly bound heteronuclear KRb Feshbach molecules, we implement precise control of the molecular electronic, vibrational, and rotational degrees of freedom with phase-coherent laser fields. In particular, we coherently transfer these weakly bound molecules across a 125 THz frequency gap in a single step into the absolute rovibrational ground state of the electronic ground potential. Phase coherence between lasers involved in the transfer process is ensured by referencing the lasers to two single components of a phase-stabilized optical frequency comb. Using these methods, we prepare a dense gas of $4\cdot10^4$ polar molecules at a temperature below 400 nK. This fermionic molecular ensemble is close to quantum degeneracy and can be characterized by a degeneracy parameter of $T/T_F=3$. We have measured the molecular polarizability in an optical dipole trap where the trap lifetime gives clues to interesting ultracold chemical processes. Given the large measured dipole moment of the KRb molecules of 0.5 Debye, the study of quantum degenerate molecular gases interacting via strong dipolar interactions is now within experimental reach