Confinement-induced interlayer molecules: A route to strong interatomic interactions

Abstract

We study theoretically the interaction between two species of ultracold atoms confined into two layers of a finite separation, and demonstrate the existence of new types of confinement-induced interlayer bound and quasi-bound molecules: these novel exciton-like interlayer molecules appear for both positive and negative scattering lengths, and exist even for layer separations many times larger than the interspecies scattering length. The lifetime of the quasi-bound molecules grows exponentially with increasing layer separation, and they can therefore be observed in simple shaking experiments, as we demonstrate through detailed many-body calculations. These quasi-bound molecules can also give rise to novel interspecies Feshbach resonances, enabling one to control geometrically the interaction between the two species by changing the layer separation. Rather counter-intuitively, the species can be made strongly interacting, by increasing their spatial separation. The separation induced interlayer resonances provide a powerful tool for the experimental control of interspecies interactions and enables one to realize novel quantum phases of multicomponent quantum gases.