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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 4: Quantum gases II (jointly with Q)
A 4.4: Group Report
Monday, March 10, 2008, 18:00–18:30, 1A
Strongly interacting Fermi gases in an optical lattice — •Henning Moritz1, Niels Strohmaier1, Robert Jördens1, Kenneth J. Günter1,2, Yosuke Takasu1,3, Michael Köhl1,4, and Tilman Esslinger1 — 1Institute of Quantum Electronics, ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland — 2Department for Electronic Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan — 3Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom — 4Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, 24, rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris
When fermionic atoms are placed in the periodic potential of an optical lattice, they behave very much like electrons in a solid. However, the properties of this synthetic material can be changed at will. Here, we report on the experimental realization and investigation of strongly interacting Fermi gases with tunable interactions.
By changing the attractive interaction strength we are able to control the transport properties: while dipole oscillations are observed for a non-interacting gas, the cloud relaxes very slowly to its equilibrium position for strong attractive interactions. We suggest an interpretation in the framework of the Hubbard model including external confinement. The strong attraction induces bound states, which can only tunnel very slowly via second order processes.
Furthermore, experiments on the behavior of repulsive Fermi gases will be presented.