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Spontaneous Dissociation of Long-Range Feshbach Molecules

Published

Author(s)

T K hler, Eite Tiesinga, Paul S. Julienne

Abstract

We study the spontaneous dissociation of diatomic molecules produced in cold atomic gases via magnetic field tunable Feshbach resonances. We provide a universal formula for the lifetime of these molecules that relates their decay to the scattering length and the loss rate constant for inelastic spin relaxation collisions. Our universal treatment as well as our exact coupled channels calculations for 85Rb dimers predict a suppression of the decay over several orders of magnitude when the scattering length is increased. Our predictions are in good agreement with recent measurements of the lifetime of 85Rb2.
Citation
Physical Review Letters
Volume
94

Keywords

Feshbach resonance, lifetime, molecule, scattering length, spin relaxation, ultracold gas

Citation

K hler, T. , Tiesinga, E. and Julienne, P. (2005), Spontaneous Dissociation of Long-Range Feshbach Molecules, Physical Review Letters (Accessed April 20, 2024)
Created December 31, 2004, Updated October 12, 2021