Darmstadt 2008 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 2: Quantum gases I (jointly with Q)

A 2.3: Group Report

Monday, March 10, 2008, 15:00–15:30, 1A

Dissipation Fermionizes a One-Dimensional Gas of Bosonic Molecules — •Dominik M. Bauer, Niels Syassen, Matthias Lettner, Thomas Volz, Daniel Dietze, Juan J. Garcia-Ripoll, Ignacio Cirac, Gerhard Rempe, and Stephan Dürr — Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

Many-body systems usually behave differently depending on whether the particles are bosons or fermions. However, bosons are forced to behave much like fermions if the system is one-dimensional (1D) and the interactions dominate the dynamics. This strongly correlated system is called a Tonks-Girardeau gas [1,2] and was observed with atoms in optical lattices [3,4]. All this work dealt with conservative interactions. Here we demonstrate a surprising generalisation, namely that inelastic collisions produce a dissipative analogue of the Tonks-Girardeau gas. We report on an experiment with molecules confined to 1D in an optical lattice. Inelastic collisions between the molecules create strong correlations that suppress the molecule loss rate by a factor of about 10. We dramatically increase this suppression by adding a lattice along the 1D direction. We develop theory which agrees with our experimental observations. Our work offers perspectives to create other, and possible new, strongly correlated states using dissipation.

[1] Tonks, L. Phys. Rev. 50, 955-963 (1936).

[2] Girardeau, M. J. Math. Phys. 1, 516-523 (1960).

[3] Paredes, B. et al. Nature 429, 277-281 (2004).

[4] Kinoshita, T. et al. Science 305, 1125-1128 (2004).