Three-dimensional dipolar thermalization in a reactive molecular gas with resonant shielding

Published

October 1, 2021

Author(s)

Jun-Ru Li, William Tobias, Kyle Matsuda, Calder Miller, Giacomo Valtolina, Luigi De Marco, Rueben Wang, John Bohn, Goulven Quemener, Jun Ye

Abstract

We demonstrate suppression of the reactive loss in a gas of ultracold ⁴⁰K⁸⁷Rb molecules in a three-dimensional geometry. The electric field-induced collisional shielding suppresses loss by two orders of magnitude while preserving elastic, long-range dipolar interactions. The favorable ratio of elastic to inelastic collisions enables direct thermalization manifested via cross-dimensional thermal relaxation. The rate of the relaxation depends on the angle between the collisional axis and the dipole orientation, a characteristic of anisotropic dipolar interactions. This work establishes a longlived bulk quantum gas system with tunable interactions, paving the way for the study of collective quantum many-body physics mediated by long-range interactions.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

17

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01329-6

Local Download

Keywords

dipolar interactions, thermalization, ultracold molecules

Citation

Li, J. , Tobias, W. , Matsuda, K. , Miller, C. , Valtolina, G. , De Marco, L. , Wang, R. , Bohn, J. , Quemener, G. and Ye, J. (2021), Three-dimensional dipolar thermalization in a reactive molecular gas with resonant shielding, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01329-6, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=931932 (Accessed October 10, 2025)