Interaction-induced decay of a heteronuclear two-atom system.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26199051.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms8803 and PMC identifier 4525158.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Two-atom systems in small traps are of fundamental interest for understanding the role of interactions in degenerate cold gases and for the creation of quantum gates in quantum information processing with single-atom traps. One of the key quantities is the inelastic relaxation (decay) time when one of the atoms or both are in a higher hyperfine state. Here we measure this quantity in a heteronuclear system of (87)Rb and (85)Rb in a micro optical trap and demonstrate experimentally and theoretically the presence of both fast and slow relaxation processes, depending on the choice of the initial hyperfine states. This experimental method allows us to single out a particular relaxation process thus provides an extremely clean platform for collisional physics studies. Our results have also implications for engineering of quantum states via controlled collisions and creation of two-qubit quantum gates.