Spatial separation in a thermal mixture of ultracold174Yb and 87Rb atoms

Published

April 21, 2011

Author(s)

F. Baumer, F. Munchow, A. Gorlitz, Stephen Maxwell, Paul S. Julienne, Eite Tiesinga

Abstract

We report on the observation of unusually strong interactions in a thermal mixture of ultracold atoms which cause a significant modification of the spatial distribution. A mixture of 87Rb and 174Yb with a temperature of a few μK is prepared in a hybrid trap consisting of a bichromatic optical potential superimposed on a magnetic trap. For suitable trap parameters and temperatures, a spatial separation of the two species is observed. We infer that the separation is driven by a large interaction strength between 174Yb and 87Rb and a correspondingly large three-body recombination rate. A diffusion model of the spatial separation supports this conclusion.

Citation

Physical Review A

Volume

83

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.83.040702

Local Download

Keywords

ultracold atoms, ultracold collisions, diffusion, phase separation, three-body recombination

Citation

Baumer, F. , Munchow, F. , Gorlitz, A. , Maxwell, S. , Julienne, P. and Tiesinga, E. (2011), Spatial separation in a thermal mixture of ultracold174Yb and 87Rb atoms, Physical Review A, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.83.040702, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=906262 (Accessed October 9, 2025)