Bj Boudewijn Verhaar

Interisotope Determination of Ultracold Rubidium Interactions from Three High-Precision Experiments

Combining the measured binding energies of four of the most weakly bound rovibrational levels of the 87Rb2 molecule with results of two other recent high-precision experiments, we obtain exceptionally strong constraints on the atomic interaction parameters in a highly model independent analysis. The comparison of (85)Rb and (87)Rb data, where the two isotopes are related by a mass scaling procedure, plays a crucial role. We predict scattering lengths, clock shifts, and Feshbach resonances with an unprecedented level of accuracy. Two of the Feshbach resonances occur at easily accessible magnetic fields in mixed-spin channels. One is related to a d-wave shape resonance.

Radio-Frequency Spectroscopy of Ultracold Fermions

Radio-frequency techniques were used to study ultracold fermions. We observed the absence of mean-field “clock” shifts, the dominant source of systematic error in current atomic clocks based on bosonic atoms. This absence is a direct consequence of fermionic antisymmetry. Resonance shifts proportional to interaction strengths were observed in a three-level system. However, in the strongly interacting regime, these shifts became very small, reflecting the quantum unitarity limit and many-body effects. This insight into an interacting Fermi gas is relevant for the quest to observe superfluidity in this system.

Feshbach resonances in rubidium 87: precision measurement and analysis.

More than 40 Feshbach resonances in rubidium 87 are observed in the magnetic-field range between 0.5 and 1260 G for various spin mixtures in the lower hyperfine ground state. The Feshbach resonances are observed by monitoring the atom loss, and their positions are determined with an accuracy of 30 mG. In a detailed analysis, the resonances are identified and an improved set of model parameters for the rubidium interatomic potential is deduced. The elastic width of the broadest resonance at 1007 G is predicted to be significantly larger than the magnetic-field resolution of the apparatus. This demonstrates the potential for applications based on tuning the scattering length.

Feshbach resonances with large background scattering length: interplay with open-channel resonances

Feshbach resonances are commonly described by a single-resonance Feshbach model, and open-channel resonances are not taken into account explicitly. However, an open-channel resonance near threshold limits the range of validity of this model. Such a situation exists when the background scattering length is much larger than the range of the interatomic potential. The open-channel resonance introduces strong threshold effects not included in the single-resonance description. We derive an easy-to-use analytical model that takes into account both the Feshbach resonance and the open-channel resonance. We apply our model to 85 Rb, which has a large background scattering length, and show that the agreement with coupled-channel calculations is excellent. The model can be readily applied to other atomic systems with a large background scattering length, such as 6 Li and 133 Cs. Our approach provides full insight into the underlying physics of the interplay between openchannel (or potential) resonances and Feshbach resonances.

Predicting scattering properties of ultracold atoms: Adiabatic accumulated phase method and mass scaling

Ultracold atoms are increasingly used for high-precision experiments that can be utilized to extract accurate scattering properties. This results in a stronger need to improve on the accuracy of interatomic potentials, and in particular the usually rather inaccurate inner-range potentials. A boundary condition for this short range can be conveniently given via the accumulated phase method. However, in this approach one should satisfy three conditions, two of which are in principle conflicting, and the validity of these approximations comes under stress when higher precision is required. We show that a better compromise between the two is possible by allowing for an adiabatic change in the hyperfine mixing of singlet and triplet states for interatomic distances smaller than the separation radius. Results we presented previously in a brief publication using this method show a high precision and extend the set of predicted quantities. The purpose of this paper is to describe its background. A mass-scaling approach to relate accumulated phase parameters in a combined analysis of isotopically related atom pairs is described in detail and its accuracy is estimated, taking into account both Born-Oppenheimer and Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin breakdown. We demonstrate how numbers of singlet and triplet bound states follow from the mass scaling.

Total control over ultracold interactions via electric and magnetic fields

The scattering length is commonly used to characterize the strength of ultracold atomic interactions, since it is the leading parameter in the low-energy expansion of the scattering phase shift. Its value can be modified via a magnetic field, by using a Feshbach resonance. However, the effective range term, which is the second parameter in the phase shift expansion, determines the width of the resonance and gives rise to important properties of ultracold gases. Independent control over this parameter is not possible by using a magnetic field only. We demonstrate that a combination of magnetic and electric fields can be used to get independent control over both parameters, which leads to full control over elastic ultracold interactions.

Time-independent and time-dependent photoassociation of spin-polarized rubidium

We extract information about collisions of ultra-cold ground-state rubidium atoms from observations of a g-wave shape resonance in the 85Rb + 85Rb system via time-independent and time-dependent photoassociation. The shape resonance arises from a quasi-bound state inside a centrifugal barrier that enhances the excitation to the bound electronically excited state by the photoassociation laser in the time-independent experiment. The shape resonance is sufficiently long-lived that its build-up through the barrier can be observed by first depleting it via a photoassociation laser pulse and then measuring the rate of photoassociation by a second laser pulse with a variable delay time. A combined method of analysis of the time-independent and time- dependent experiments is presented. We discuss the spectroscopy of states of two particles with spin trapped inside a centrifugal barrier, interacting via direct and indirect spin-spin interactions.

The optical pumping of a metastable level of a fast neon beam

Abstract Optical pumping of metastable neon atoms ( J = 0, 2) in a fast atomic beam ( v = 2000–10 000 m/s) has been investigated experimentally for application as a state-selective modulation technique in scattering experiments. The experimental techniques used to monitor this process are detection of the fluorescence radiation and a measurement of the velocity resolved attenuation of the beam of metastable atoms. The latter method directly gives the fraction of the metastable atoms that are destroyed; it has been used to investigate the effect of a magnetic field on the pumping process in case a polarized laser beam is used. Because a weak magnetic field does not interfere with the optical pumping, the Zeeman splitting being much smaller than the natural linewidth, it can be effectively applied to produce pumping of all magnetic substates, resulting in a maximum modulation of the metastable level population. In the pumping of a thermal beam a stray field, of = 0.1 G suffices.

Dissociation of Feshbach molecules into different partial waves

Ultracold molecules can be associated from ultracold atoms by ramping the magnetic field through a Feshbach resonance. A reverse ramp dissociates the molecules. Under suitable conditions, more than one outgoing partial wave can be populated. A theoretical model for this process is discussed here in detail. The model reveals the connection between the dissociation and the theory of multichannel scattering resonances. In particular, the decay rate, the branching ratio, and the relative phase between the partial waves can be predicted from theory or extracted from experiment. The results are applicable to our recent experiment in

Limit on suppression of ionization in metastable neon traps due to long-range anisotropy

^{87}\mathrm{Rb}