G. V. Shlyapnikov

Three-body recombination of ultra-cold atoms to a weakly bound s level

We discuss three-body recombination of ultracold atoms to a weakly bound {ital s} level. In this case, characterized by large and positive scattering length {ital a} for pair interaction, we find a repulsive effective potential for three-body collisions, which strongly reduces the recombination probability. In the zero temperature limit we obtain a universal relation, independent of the detailed shape of the interaction potential, for the (event) rate constant of three-body recombination: {alpha}{sub rec}=3.9 {h_bar}{ital a}{sup 4}/{ital m}, where {ital m} is the atom mass. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}

Anderson Localization of Expanding Bose-Einstein Condensates in Random Potentials

We show that the expansion of an initially confined interacting 1D Bose-Einstein condensate can exhibit Anderson localization in a weak random potential with correlation length sigma(R). For speckle potentials the Fourier transform of the correlation function vanishes for momenta k>2/sigma(R) so that the Lyapunov exponent vanishes in the Born approximation for k>1/sigma(R). Then, for the initial healing length of the condensate xi(in)>sigma(R) the localization is exponential, and for xi(in)

Suppression of Transport of an Interacting Elongated Bose-Einstein Condensate in a Random Potential

We observe the suppression of the 1D transport of an interacting elongated Bose-Einstein condensate in a random potential with an amplitude that is small compared to the typical energy per atom, dominated by the interaction energy. Numerical calculations reproduce our observations well. We propose a scenario for disorder-induced trapping of the condensate in agreement with our findings.

A finite-temperature phase transition for disordered weakly interacting bosons in one dimension

It is commonly accepted that there are no phase transitions in one-dimensional systems at a finite temperature, because long-range correlations are destroyed by thermal fluctuations. Here we show theoretically that the one-dimensional gas of short-range interacting bosons in the presence of disorder can undergo a finite-temperature phase transition between two distinct states: fluid and insulator. Neither of these states has long-range spatial correlations, but this is a true, albeit non-conventional, phase transition, because transport properties are singular at the transition point. In the fluid phase, mass transport is possible, whereas in the insulator phase it is completely blocked even at finite temperatures. This study thus provides insight into how the interaction between disordered bosons influences their Anderson localization. This question, first raised for electrons in solids, is now crucial for the studies of atomic bosons, where recent experiments have demonstrated Anderson localization in expanding dilute quasi-one-dimensional clouds.

Stable Topological Superfluid Phase of Ultracold Polar Fermionic Molecules

We show that single-component fermionic polar molecules confined to a 2D geometry and dressed by a microwave field may acquire an attractive 1/r(3) dipole-dipole interaction leading to superfluid p-wave pairing at sufficiently low temperatures even in the BCS regime. The emerging state is the topological p(x) + ip(y) phase promising for topologically protected quantum information processing. The main decay channel is via collisional transitions to dressed states with lower energies and is rather slow, setting a lifetime of the order of seconds at 2D densities approximately 10(8) cm(-2).

Interlayer superfluidity in bilayer systems of fermionic polar molecules

We consider fermionic polar molecules in a bilayer geometry where they are oriented perpendicularly to the layers, which permits both low inelastic losses and superfluid pairing. The dipole-dipole interaction between molecules of different layers leads to the emergence of interlayer superfluids. The superfluid regimes range from BCS-like fermionic superfluidity with a high Tc to Bose-Einstein (quasi-)condensation of interlayer dimers, thus exhibiting a peculiar BCS-Bose-Einstein condensation crossover. We show that one can cover the entire crossover regime under current experimental conditions.

Microwave-induced Fano-Feshbach resonances

We investigate the possibility to control the s-wave scattering length for the interaction between cold bosonic atoms by using a microwave field. Our scheme applies to any atomic species with a ground state that is split by hyperfine interaction. We discuss more specifically the case of alkali-metal atoms and calculate the change in the scattering length for {sup 7}Li, {sup 23}Na, {sup 41}K, {sup 87}Rb, and {sup 133}Cs. Our results yield optimistic prospects for experiments with the four latter species.

Diatomic molecules in ultracold Fermi gases - Novel composite bosons

We give a brief overview of recent studies of weakly bound homonuclear molecules in ultracold two-component Fermi gases. It is emphasized that they represent novel composite bosons, which exhibit features of Fermi statistics at short intermolecular distances. In particular, the Pauli exclusion principle for identical fermionic atoms provides a strong suppression of collisional relaxation of such molecules into deep bound states. We then analyse heteronuclear molecules which are expected to be formed in mixtures of different fermionic atoms. We show how an increase in the mass ratio for the constituent atoms changes the physics of collisional stability of such molecules compared to homonuclear ones. We discuss Bose–Einstein condensation of these composite bosons and consider prospects for future studies.

Dynamics of Two Interacting Bose-Einstein Condensates

We analize the dynamics of two trapped interacting Bose-Einstein condensates and indentify two regimes for the evolution: the regime of slow periodic oscillations and the regime of strong non-linear mixing leading to the damping of the relative motion of the condensates. We compare our predictions with an experiment recently performed at JILA.

Crystalline phase of strongly interacting Fermi mixtures

We show that the system of weakly bound molecules of heavy and light fermionic atoms is characterized by a long-range intermolecular repulsion and can undergo a gas-crystal quantum transition if the mass ratio exceeds a critical value. For the critical mass ratio above 100 obtained in our calculations, this crystalline order can be observed as a superlattice in an optical lattice for heavy atoms with a small filling factor. We also find that this novel system is sufficiently stable with respect to molecular relaxation into deep bound states and to the process of trimer formation.