Ultracold mixtures of metastable He and Rb: scattering lengths from ab initio calculations and thermalization measurements

We have investigated the ultracold interspecies scattering properties of metastable triplet He and Rb. We performed state-of-the-art ab initio calculations of the relevant interaction potential, and measured the interspecies elastic cross section for an ultracold mixture of metastable triplet \(^4\)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2014-07
Main Authors: Knoop, S, Żuchowski, P S, Kȩdziera, D, \L Mentel, Puchalski, M, Mishra, H P, Flores, A S, Vassen, W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Mathematical analysis
Quadrupoles
Scattering
Thermalization (energy absorption)
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We have investigated the ultracold interspecies scattering properties of metastable triplet He and Rb. We performed state-of-the-art ab initio calculations of the relevant interaction potential, and measured the interspecies elastic cross section for an ultracold mixture of metastable triplet \(^4\)He and \(^{87}\)Rb in a quadrupole magnetic trap at a temperature of 0.5 mK. Our combined theoretical and experimental study gives an interspecies scattering length \(a_{4+87}=+17^{+1}_{-4}\) \(a_0\), which prior to this work was unknown. More general, our work shows the possibility of obtaining accurate scattering lengths using ab initio calculations for a system containing a heavy, many-electron atom, such as Rb.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1404.4826