Berlin 2005 – scientific programme

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A: Atomphysik

A 13: Poster HU 2

A 13.58: Poster

Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 08:30–18:30, Poster HU

Fermionic atoms and molecule formation in a 3D optical lattice — •Kenneth Günter, Thilo Stöferle, Henning Moritz, Christian Schori, Michael Köhl, and Tilman Esslinger — ETH Zurich, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Hönggerberg, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland

Thanks to recent experimental progress the study of degenerate atomic Fermi gases has gained much momentum. Such a gas constitutes a rich and well controllable system which serves as a unique model for quantum many-body physics. When the atoms feel the periodic potential of an optical lattice even the system’s dimensionality can be adjusted and the atom-atom interaction can be tuned by the confinement strength.

We load a spin mixture of 40K atoms into an optical lattice and directly image the Fermi surfaces. Gradual filling of the lattice transforms the system from a normal state into a band insulator. By using a Feshbach resonance we increase the interaction between the two spin states. Doing so, we are able to dynamically induce coupling between the lowest energy bands. The strong confinement in the lattice can shift the coupling with respect to the case in free space.

Adiabatically crossing the Feshbach resonance allows us to form molecules reversibly and to study their physics in the optical lattice.