Observation of bound state self-interaction in a nano-eV atom collider

Ryan Thomas, Matthew Chilcott, Eite Tiesinga, Amita B. Deb and Niels Kjærgaard ()
Additional contact information
Ryan Thomas: University of Otago
Matthew Chilcott: University of Otago
Eite Tiesinga: National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Maryland
Amita B. Deb: University of Otago
Niels Kjærgaard: University of Otago

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Quantum mechanical scattering resonances for colliding particles occur when a continuum scattering state couples to a discrete bound state between them. The coupling also causes the bound state to interact with itself via the continuum and leads to a shift in the bound state energy, but, lacking knowledge of the bare bound state energy, measuring this self-energy via the resonance position has remained elusive. Here, we report on the direct observation of self-interaction by using a nano-eV atom collider to track the position of a magnetically-tunable Feshbach resonance through a parameter space spanned by energy and magnetic field. Our system of potassium and rubidium atoms displays a strongly non-monotonic resonance trajectory with an exceptionally large self-interaction energy arising from an interplay between the Feshbach bound state and a different, virtual bound state at a fixed energy near threshold.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07375-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-07375-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07375-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().