118 research outputs found
Ultracold Dipolar Gas of Fermionic NaK Molecules in their Absolute Ground State
We report on the creation of an ultracold dipolar gas of fermionic
NaK molecules in their absolute rovibrational and hyperfine
ground state. Starting from weakly bound Feshbach molecules, we demonstrate
hyperfine resolved two-photon transfer into the singlet ground state, coherently bridging a binding energy
difference of 0.65 eV via stimulated rapid adiabatic passage. The
spin-polarized, nearly quantum degenerate molecular gas displays a lifetime
longer than 2.5 s, highlighting NaK's stability against two-body chemical
reactions. A homogeneous electric field is applied to induce a dipole moment of
up to 0.8 Debye. With these advances, the exploration of many-body physics with
strongly dipolar Fermi gases of NaK molecules is in experimental
reach.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Two-Photon Pathway to Ultracold Ground State Molecules of NaK
We report on high-resolution spectroscopy of ultracold fermionic
\nak~Feshbach molecules, and identify a two-photon pathway to the rovibrational
singlet ground state via a resonantly mixed \Bcres intermediate state.
Photoassociation in a Na-K atomic mixture and one-photon
spectroscopy on \nak~Feshbach molecules reveal about 20 vibrational levels of
the electronically excited \ctrip state. Two of these levels are found to be
strongly perturbed by nearby \Bsing states via spin-orbit coupling, resulting
in additional lines of dominant singlet character in the perturbed complex
{}, or of
resonantly mixed character in {}. The dominantly singlet level is used to locate
the absolute rovibrational singlet ground state via Autler-Townes spectroscopy. We demonstrate coherent
two-photon coupling via dark state spectroscopy between the predominantly
triplet Feshbach molecular state and the singlet ground state. Its binding
energy is measured to be 5212.0447(1) \cm, a thousand-fold improvement in
accuracy compared to previous determinations. In their absolute singlet ground
state, \nak~molecules are chemically stable under binary collisions and possess
a large electric dipole moment of Debye. Our work thus paves the way
towards the creation of strongly dipolar Fermi gases of NaK molecules.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure
Photo-induced two-body loss of ultracold molecules
The lifetime of nonreactive ultracold bialkali gases was conjectured to be
limited by sticky collisions amplifying three-body loss. We show that the
sticking times were previously overestimated and do not support this
hypothesis. We find that electronic excitation of NaK+NaK collision complexes
by the trapping laser leads to the experimentally observed two-body loss. We
calculate the excitation rate with a quasiclassical, statistical model
employing ab initio potentials and transition dipole moments. Using longer
laser wavelengths or repulsive box potentials may suppress the losses
Coherence and clock shifts in ultracold Fermi gases with resonant interactions
Using arguments based on sum rules, we derive a general result for the
average shifts of rf lines in Fermi gases in terms of interatomic interaction
strengths and two-particle correlation functions. We show that near an
interaction resonance shifts vary inversely with the atomic scattering length,
rather than linearly as in dilute gases, thus accounting for the experimental
observation that clock shifts remain finite at Feshbach resonances.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Nordita preprint NORDITA-2007-2
Coherent Microwave Control of Ultracold NaK Molecules
We demonstrate coherent microwave control of rotational and hyperfine states
of trapped, ultracold, and chemically stable NaK molecules.
Starting with all molecules in the absolute rovibrational and hyperfine ground
state, we study rotational transitions in combined magnetic and electric fields
and explain the rich hyperfine structure. Following the transfer of the entire
molecular ensemble into a single hyperfine level of the first rotationally
excited state, , we observe collisional lifetimes of more than , comparable to those in the rovibrational ground state, . Long-lived
ensembles and full quantum state control are prerequisites for the use of
ultracold molecules in quantum simulation, precision measurements and quantum
information processing.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Direct Observation of the Superfluid Phase Transition in Ultracold Fermi Gases
Water freezes into ice, atomic spins spontaneously align in a magnet, liquid
helium becomes superfluid: Phase transitions are dramatic phenomena. However,
despite the drastic change in the system's behaviour, observing the transition
can sometimes be subtle. The hallmark of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) and
superfluidity in trapped, weakly interacting Bose gases is the sudden
appearance of a dense central core inside a thermal cloud. In strongly
interacting gases, such as the recently observed fermionic superfluids, this
clear separation between the superfluid and the normal parts of the cloud is no
longer given. Condensates of fermion pairs could be detected only using
magnetic field sweeps into the weakly interacting regime. The quantitative
description of these sweeps presents a major theoretical challenge. Here we
demonstrate that the superfluid phase transition can be directly observed by
sudden changes in the shape of the clouds, in complete analogy to the case of
weakly interacting Bose gases. By preparing unequal mixtures of the two spin
components involved in the pairing, we greatly enhance the contrast between the
superfluid core and the normal component. Furthermore, the non-interacting
wings of excess atoms serve as a direct and reliable thermometer. Even in the
normal state, strong interactions significantly deform the density profile of
the majority spin component. We show that it is these interactions which drive
the normal-to-superfluid transition at the critical population imbalance of
70(5)%.Comment: 16 pages (incl. Supplemental Material), 5 figure
High-temperature superfluidity in an ultracold Fermi gas
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, February 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 258-280).This thesis presents experiments in which a strongly interacting gas of fermions was brought into the superfluid regime. The strong interactions are induced by a Feshbach scattering resonance that allows to tune the interfermion scattering length via an external magnetic field. When a Fermi mixture was cooled on the molecular side of such a Feshbach resonance, Bose-Einstein condensation of up to 107 molecules was observed. Subsequently, the crossover region interpolating between such a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of molecules and a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluid of long-range Cooper pairs was studied. Condensates of fermion pairs were detected in a regime where pairing is purely a many-body effect, the pairs being stabilized by the presence of the surrounding particles. Superfluidity and phase coherence in these systems was directly demonstrated throughout the crossover via the observation of long-lived, ordered vortex lattices in a rotating Fermi mixture. Finally, superfluidity in imbalanced Fermi mixtures was established, and its Clogston limit was observed for high imbalance. The gas was found to separate into a region of equal densities, surrounded by a shell at unequal densities.by Martin W. Zwierlein.Ph.D
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