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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 6: Ultrakalte Moleküle (mit MO)
Q 6.6: Talk
Monday, March 2, 2009, 12:00–12:15, VMP 8 HS
Observation of a resonant exchange reaction in an ultracold mixture of cesium atoms and dimers — •Martin Berninger1, Francesca Ferlaino1, Steven Knoop1, Walter Harm1, Michael Mark1,2, Hanns-Christoph Nägerl1, and Rudolf Grimm1,3 — 1Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innbruck, Austria — 2Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia — 3Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Innsbruck, Austria
An ultracold atomic gas of cesium is a versatile system to study few-body phenomena because of the extreme tunability of its scattering length. We have studied interactions in an optically trapped mixture of Feshbach molecules with atoms, realized in a Cs gas at nanokelvin temperatures. We start with a sample of atoms in the lowest hyperfine state A and produce molecules AA by means of Feshbach association. Then we transfer the remaining atoms A to a hyperfine state B that is distinct from that of the Feshbach molecule’s constituents. We study the exchange reaction B + AA → A + AB, which is resonantly enhanced when the binding energies of AA and AB are equal. The reaction rate is prominent and magnetically tunable, thus showing all properties of controllable ultracold chemistry.