Suppressing the loss of ultracold molecules via the continuous quantum Zeno effect

ORAL

Abstract

We develop theoretical methods to explain the recently observed suppression of chemical reactions between two rotational states of fermionic KRb molecules confined in 1D tubes with a superimposed optical lattice along them [Yan {\it et al}., Nature 501, 521 (2013)]. The loss suppression is a consequence of both lattice confinement and the continuous quantum Zeno effect, which in this case takes place in the regime where the two-body loss is larger than other energy scales in the lattice. To quantitatively analyze the experiment, we derive a renormalized single-band model which accounts for 3D multi-band effects, and formulate from it a rate equation and mean-field theory validated by comparing with numerically exact t-DMRG. We demonstrate that the renormalized model captures the measured dependence of the loss rate on all lattice parameters, allowing us to determine the filling fraction.

*We acknowledge funding from NIST, JILANSF- PFC, NSF-PIF, ARO, ARO-DARPA-OLE, and AFOSR.

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Authors

  • Bihui Zhu

    • JILA

  • Bryce Gadway

    • JILA

  • Michael Foss-Feig

    • JQI
    • JQI, NIST-Maryland

  • Johannes Schachenmayer

    • JILA

  • Michael Wall

    • JILA
    • JILA, University of Colorado, Boulder

  • Kaden Hazzard

    • JILA, NIST and Dept. of Physics, CU Boulder
    • JILA, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA
    • JILA
    • JILA, NIST, and University of Colorado, Boulder

  • Bo Yan

    • JILA, NIST, and University of Colorado, Boulder
    • JILA

  • Steven Moses

    • JILA

  • Jacob Covey

    • JILA

  • Deborah Jin

    • JILA, NIST and University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-04
    • NIST and Univ of Colorado, Boulder
    • JILA, NIST, and University of Colorado, Boulder
    • JILA

  • Jun Ye

    • JILA, NIST, and University of Colorado, Boulder
    • JILA

  • Murray Holland

    • JILA, University of Colorado Boulder
    • JILA

  • Ana Maria Rey

    • JILA
    • JILA, NIST, and University of Colorado, Boulder
    • JILA and University of Colorado
    • JILA, NIST, and Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder