Hannover 2010 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 43: Ultracold Molecules (with MO)
Q 43.1: Gruppenbericht
Donnerstag, 11. März 2010, 10:30–11:00, E 001
Ultracold chemistry and dipolar collisions in a quantum gas of polar KRb molecules — •Silke Ospelkaus1,2, Kang-Kuen Ni2, Marcio de Miranda2, Brian Neyenhuis2, Dajun Wang2, Jun Ye2, and Deborah Jin2 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching — 2JILA, NIST & University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Polar molecular quantum gases promise to open new scientific frontiers and research directions. Due to their large electric dipole moment, polar molecules interact via long-rage and anisotropic interactions. The control of these interactions provides unique opportunities ranging from the control of ultracold chemical reactions, applications to quantum information processing, novel strongly correlated quantum many-body systems to collisional control on the quantum level with external electric and magnetic fieds. Here, we report on our recent experiments with a quantum gas of fermionic polar 40K87Rb molecules. We report the preparation of a near-quantum degenerate gas of rovibronic ground state molecules in a single hyperfine state and in particular in the absolute lowest quantum state - implementing full control over all internal molecular quantum degrees of freedom (electronic, vibrational, rotational and hyperfine). We discuss experimental evidence for chemical reactions at ultracold temperatures and show that simple quantum mechanical rules such as quantum statistics, single scattering partial waves, and quantum threshold laws provide the basis for understanding of the molecular loss rates at ultracold temperature. Finally, we report the observation of dipolar collisions in the polar molecular gas.