Frankfurt 2006 – scientific programme

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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 34: Poster Quantengase

Q 34.12: Poster

Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 16:30–18:30, Labsaal

Long lifetime of Feshbach molecules made from bosonic atoms — •Dominik Bauer, Thomas Volz, Niels Syassen, Eberhard Hansis, Stephan Dürr, and Gerhard Rempe — Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

Feshbach molecules made from bosonic atoms usually decay within a few milliseconds due to inelastic collisions with other atoms or molecules [1]. We report how the lifetime of the molecules is increased in an optical lattice.

We load a ⁸⁷Rb BEC into an optical lattice and achieve a quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator. This can be used to tailor the number of atoms per lattice site. We prepare a Mott insulator in which a large fraction of the sites is occupied by two atoms each. Feshbach molecules are created at sites containing two or more atoms by ramping the magnetic field through the Feshbach resonance at 1007 G [2]. Sites with three or more atoms are rapidly depleted by inelastic collisions. What is left are isolated ⁸⁷Rb₂ molecules. We find lifetimes around 100ms for these isolated molecules. The creation of long-lived Feshbach molecules in optical lattices is also reported in [3].

[1] T. Mukaiyama et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 180402 (2004)

[2] S. Dürr et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 020406 (2004)

[3] G. Thalhammer et al., cond-mat/0510755