Collisional stability of localized Yb(3P2) atoms immersed in a Fermi sea of Li

Hideki Konishi,Yoshiro Takahashi,Shinya Ueda,Florian Schäfer

doi:10.1088/1367-2630/18/10/103009

Abstract

We establish an experimental method for a detailed investigation of inelastic collisional properties between ytterbium (Yb) in the metastable state and ground state lithium (Li). By combining an optical lattice and a direct excitation to the state we achieve high selectivity on the collisional partners. Using this method we determine inelastic loss coefficients in collisions between 174Yb() with magnetic sublevels of mJ = 0 and −2 and ground state 6Li to be and , respectively. Absence of spin changing processes in Yb()–Li inelastic collisions at low magnetic fields is confirmed by inelastic loss measurements on the mJ = 0 state. We also demonstrate that our method allows us to look into loss processes in few-body systems separately.

Highlights

Impurities play crucial roles in condensed-matter physics such as Anderson localization [1], the Kondo effect [2], and Anderson’s orthogonality catastrophe [3]
We repeat the identical experimental sequence for a sample without Li, where Li atoms are removed from the trap by applying a laser pulse resonant to the Li D2 line with a duration of 1 ms before loading the lattice
Besides the Yb ( 3P2)–Li inelastic collision measurements, we demonstrate that our method using an optical lattice and a direct excitation allows us to study collisional processes site-occupancy selectively

Summary

Introduction

Impurities play crucial roles in condensed-matter physics such as Anderson localization [1], the Kondo effect [2], and Anderson’s orthogonality catastrophe [3]. In addition to usual mechanisms of FRs as in alkali atoms [18], the observed resonances arise from anisotropy effects in their interactions [19]. In consideration of these recent results, it is reasonable to expect some useful FRs in the Yb( 3P2 )–Li system. A mixture of 174Yb( 3P2 , mJ = -1) and 6Li was realized at a few mK [22], and variations of the inelastic loss rate of the 174Yb ( 3P2 , mJ = -1)–6Li collisions for 100–520 G were observed, providing in conjunction with theoretical considerations evidence for FRs between them [23].

Sample preparation and detection

Results

Site-occupancy selective loss measurements

Conclusions and outlook