Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 013161 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Physical Review Research |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 3 Mar 2023 |
Abstract
Three-body recombination is a chemical reaction where the collision of three atoms leads to the formation of a diatomic molecule. In the ultracold regime it is expected that the production rate of a molecule generally decreases with its binding energy Eb, however, its precise dependence and the physics governing it have been left unclear so far. Here we present a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the energy dependency for three-body recombination of ultracold Rb. For this, we determine production rates for molecules in a state-to-state resolved manner, with the binding energies Eb ranging from 0.02 to 77 GHz×h. We find that the formation rate approximately scales as Eb-α, where α is in the vicinity of 1. The formation rate typically varies only within a factor of two for different rotational angular momenta of the molecular product, apart from a possible centrifugal barrier suppression for low binding energies. In addition to numerical three-body calculations we present a perturbative model which reveals the physical origin of the energy scaling of the formation rate. Furthermore, we show that the scaling law potentially holds universally for a broad range of interaction potentials.
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In: Physical Review Research, Vol. 5, No. 1, 013161, 03.03.2023.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Energy scaling of the product state distribution for three-body recombination of ultracold atoms
AU - Haze, Shinsuke
AU - D'Incao, José P.
AU - Dorer, Dominik
AU - Li, Jinglun
AU - Deiß, Markus
AU - Tiemann, Eberhard
AU - Julienne, Paul S.
AU - Denschlag, Johannes Hecker
N1 - Funding Information: This work was financed by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung through the Internationale Spitzenforschung program (Contract No. BWST ISF2017-061) and by the German Research Foundation (DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) within Contract No. 399903135. We acknowledge support from bwForCluster JUSTUS 2 for high performance computing. J.P.D. also acknowledges partial support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (PHY-2012125) and NASA/JPL (1502690).
PY - 2023/3/3
Y1 - 2023/3/3
N2 - Three-body recombination is a chemical reaction where the collision of three atoms leads to the formation of a diatomic molecule. In the ultracold regime it is expected that the production rate of a molecule generally decreases with its binding energy Eb, however, its precise dependence and the physics governing it have been left unclear so far. Here we present a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the energy dependency for three-body recombination of ultracold Rb. For this, we determine production rates for molecules in a state-to-state resolved manner, with the binding energies Eb ranging from 0.02 to 77 GHz×h. We find that the formation rate approximately scales as Eb-α, where α is in the vicinity of 1. The formation rate typically varies only within a factor of two for different rotational angular momenta of the molecular product, apart from a possible centrifugal barrier suppression for low binding energies. In addition to numerical three-body calculations we present a perturbative model which reveals the physical origin of the energy scaling of the formation rate. Furthermore, we show that the scaling law potentially holds universally for a broad range of interaction potentials.
AB - Three-body recombination is a chemical reaction where the collision of three atoms leads to the formation of a diatomic molecule. In the ultracold regime it is expected that the production rate of a molecule generally decreases with its binding energy Eb, however, its precise dependence and the physics governing it have been left unclear so far. Here we present a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the energy dependency for three-body recombination of ultracold Rb. For this, we determine production rates for molecules in a state-to-state resolved manner, with the binding energies Eb ranging from 0.02 to 77 GHz×h. We find that the formation rate approximately scales as Eb-α, where α is in the vicinity of 1. The formation rate typically varies only within a factor of two for different rotational angular momenta of the molecular product, apart from a possible centrifugal barrier suppression for low binding energies. In addition to numerical three-body calculations we present a perturbative model which reveals the physical origin of the energy scaling of the formation rate. Furthermore, we show that the scaling law potentially holds universally for a broad range of interaction potentials.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85151385123&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.48550/arXiv.2211.03834
DO - 10.48550/arXiv.2211.03834
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85151385123
VL - 5
JO - Physical Review Research
JF - Physical Review Research
SN - 2643-1564
IS - 1
M1 - 013161
ER -