We use universality in two-body dipolar physics to study three-body recombination. We present results for the universal structure of weakly bound two-dipole states that depend only on the s-wave scattering length ($a$). We study threshold three-body recombination rates into weakly-bound dimer states as a function of the scattering length. A Fermi Golden rule analysis is used to estimate rates for different events mediated by the dipole-dipole interaction and a phenomenological contact interaction. The three-body recombination rate in the limit where $a\gg D$ contains terms which scale as $a^{4}$, $a^{2}D^{2}$ and $D^{4}$, where $D$ is the dipolar length. When $a \ll D$, the three-boby recombination rate scales as $D^4$.
We report the observation of a dimer-dimer inelastic collision resonance for ultracold Feshbach molecules made of bosonic sodium and rubidium atoms. This resonance, which we attribute to the crossing of the dimer-dimer threshold with a heteronuclear tetramer state, manifests itself as a pronounced inelastic loss peak of dimers when the interspecies scattering length between the constituent atoms is tuned. Near this resonance, a strong modification of the temperature dependence of the dimer-dimer scattering is observed. Our result provides insight into the heteronuclear four-body system consist…
We measure chemical reactions between a single trapped $^{174}$Yb$^+$ ion immersed in an ultracold bath of $^6$Li atoms containing trace amounts of Li$_2$ dimers. This produces LiYb$^+$ molecular ions that we detect via mass spectrometry. We explain the reaction rates by modelling the dimer density as a function of the magnetic field and obtain excellent agreement when we assume the reaction to follow the Langevin rate. Our results present a novel approach towards the creation of cold molecular ions and point to the exploration of ultracold chemistry in ion molecule collisions. What is more, w…
In the systems of spin $\frac12$ fermions with resonant $S$-wave interactions supporting only weakly bound dimers the antisymmetry forbids recombination of three (or more) fermions at zero energy. However, the fermion-fermion-dimer recombination is only partially suppressed. It is studied in the framework of momentum-space integral equations for the four-particle transition operators. In the vicinity of the unitary limit the fermion-fermion-dimer recombination rate, rescaled to build dimensionless quantity, is found to be linear in the effective range parameter, enabling a simple and accurate …
We theoretically study the dynamics of a trapped ion that is immersed in an ultracold gas of weakly bound atomic dimers created by a Feshbach resonance. Using quasi-classical simulations, we find a crossover from dimer dissociation to molecular ion formation depending on the binding energy of the dimers. The location of the crossover strongly depends on the collision energy and the time-dependent fields of the Paul trap. Deeply bound dimers lead to fast molecular ion formation, with rates approaching the Langevin collision rate $Γ'_\text{L}\approx4.8\times10^{-9}\,$cm$^3$s$^{-1}$. The kinetic …
We show that isotope-exchange reactions between ground-state alkali-metal, alkaline-earth-metal, and lanthanide heteronuclear dimers consisting of two isotopes of the same atom are exothermic with an energy change in the range of 1-8000$\,$MHz thus resulting in cold or ultracold products. For these chemical reactions there are only one rovibrational and at most several hyperfine possible product states. The number and energetics of open and closed reactive channels can be controlled by the laser and magnetic fields. We suggest a laser-induced isotope- and state-selective Stark shift control to…
Signatures of Non-universal Quantum Dynamics of Ultracold Chemical Reactions of Polar Alkali-dimer Molecules with Alkali-metal Atoms: Li($^2$S) +NaLi($a^3Σ^+$) $\to$ Na($^2$S) + Li$_2$($a^3Σ_u^+$)
We investigate the energy dependence of inelastic processes in systems which possess Efimov states. We consider the three-body recombination rate $K_3$ where three free atoms interact to produce an atom--dimer pair, and the relaxation rate $K_{\rm rel}$ where an atom quenches a weakly bound state of a dimer near an Efimov resonance to more deeply bound levels. Using a model capturing the key features of the Efimov problem, we identify new energy regimes for $K_3$, namely the NTR (Near Threshold Resonance) regime behavior $E^{-2}$ for negative scattering lengths and the NTS (Near Threshold Supp…
Ultracold molecules offer remarkable opportunities to study chemical reactions at nearly zero temperature. Although significant progresses have been achieved in exploring ultracold bimolecular reactions, the investigations are usually limited to measurements of the overall loss rates of the reactants. Detection of the reaction products will shed new light on understanding the reaction mechanism and provide a unique opportunity to study the state-to-state reaction dynamics. Here we report on the direct observation of an exoergic atom-exchange reaction in an ultracold atom-dimer mixture. Both th…
We create weakly bound bosonic $^{23}\textrm{Na}^{39}\textrm{K}$ molecules in a mixture of ultracold $^{23}\textrm{Na}$ and $^{39}\textrm{K}$. The creation is done in the vicinity of a so far undetected Feshbach resonance at about $196\,\text{G}$ which we identify in this work by atom-loss spectroscopy. We investigate the involved molecular state by performing destructive radio frequency binding energy measurements. For the constructive molecule creation we use radio frequency pulses with which we assemble up to $6000$ molecules. We analyze the molecule creation efficiency as a function of the…
We study Efimov resonances via three-body loss in an ultracold two-component gas of fermionic $^6$Li and bosonic $^{133}$Cs atoms close to a Feshbach resonance at 843~G, extending results reported previously [Pires \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 250404 (2014)] to temperatures around 120~nK. The experimental scheme for reaching lower temperatures is based upon compensating the gravity-induced spatial separation of the mass-imbalanced gases with bichromatic optical dipole traps. We observe the first and second excited Li-Cs-Cs Efimov resonance in the magnetic field dependence of the thre…
We have studied the three-body recombination rates on both sides of the interspecies d-wave Feshbach resonance in the $^{85}$Rb\,-$^{87}$Rb-$^{87}$Rb system using the $R$-matrix propagation method in the hyperspherical coordinate frame. Two different mechanisms of recombination rate enhancement for positive and negative $^{85}$Rb\,-$^{87}$Rb d-wave scattering lengths are analyzed. On the positive scattering length side, the recombination rate enhancement occurs due to the existence of three-body shape resonance, while on the negative scattering length side, the coupling between the lowest entr…
We study three-body recombination of Ba$^+$ + Rb + Rb in the mK regime where a single $^{138}$Ba$^{+}$ ion in a Paul trap is immersed into a cloud of ultracold $^{87}$Rb atoms. We measure the energy dependence of the three-body rate coefficient $k_3$ and compare the results to the theoretical prediction, $k_3 \propto E_{\textrm{col}}^{-3/4}$ where $E_{\textrm{col}}$ is the collision energy. We find agreement if we assume that the non-thermal ion energy distribution is determined by at least two different micro-motion induced energy scales. Furthermore, using classical trajectory calculations w…
We study the topological optical states in one-dimensional (1D) dimerized ultracold atomic chains, as an extension of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. By taking the fully retarded near-field and far-field dipole-dipole interactions into account, we describe the system by an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, vastly different from the Hermitian Hamiltonian of the conventional SSH model. We analytically calculate the complex bandstructures for infinitely long chains, and show that the topological invariant, i.e., the complex Zak phase, is still quantized and becomes nontrivial when the di…
We report on observations and modeling of interspecies magnetic Feshbach resonances in dilute ultracold mixtures of open-shell alkali-metal $^6$Li and closed-shell $^{173}$Yb atoms with temperatures just above quantum degeneracy for both fermionic species. Resonances are located by detecting magnetic-field-dependent atom loss due to three-body recombination. We resolve closely-located resonances that originate from a weak separation-dependent hyperfine coupling between the electronic spin of $^6$Li and the nuclear spin of $^{173}$Yb, and confirm their magnetic field spacing by ab initio electr…
We demonstrate that it is possible to efficiently control ultracold chemical reactions of alkali-metal atoms colliding with open-shell alkali-metal dimers in their metastable triplet states by choosing the internal hyperfine and rovibrational states of the reactants as well as by inducing magnetic Feshbach resonances with an external magnetic field. We base these conclusions on coupled-channel statistical calculations that include the effects of hyperfine contact and magnetic-field-induced Zeeman interactions on ultracold chemical reactions of hyperfine-resolved ground-state Na and the triplet…
