Electric-field-modified Feshbach resonances in ultracold atom–molecule collision

We present a detailed analysis of near zero-energy Feshbach resonances in ultracold collisions of atom and molecule,taking the He–PH system as an example, subject to superimposed electric and magnetic static fields. We find that the electric field can induce Feshbach resonance which cannot occur when only a magnetic field is applied, through couplings of the adjacent rotational states of different parities. We show that the electric field can shift the position of the magnetic Feshbach resonance, and change the amplitude of resonance significantly. Finally, we demonstrate that, for narrow magnetic Feshbach resonance as in most cases of ultracold atom–molecule collision, the electric field may be used to modulate the resonance, because the width of resonance in electric field scale is relatively larger than that in magnetic field scale.

Production of dual species Bose–Einstein condensates of ^(39)K and ^(87)Rb

We report the production of^(39) K and^(87) Rb Bose–Einstein condensates(BECs) in the lowest hyperfine states |F =1, m_(F) = 1 simultaneously. We collect atoms in bright/dark magneto-optical traps(MOTs) of^(39) K/^(87) Rb to overcome the light-assisted losses of^(39) K atoms. Gray molasses cooling on the D1 line of the^(39) K is used to effectively increase the phase density, which improves the loading efficiency of^(39) K into the quadrupole magnetic trap. Simultaneously, the normal molasses is employed for^(87) Rb. After the microwave evaporation cooling on^(87) Rb in the optically plugged magnetic trap,the atoms mixture is transferred to a crossed optical dipole trap, where the collisional properties of the two species in different combinations of the hyperfine states are studied. The dual species BECs of^(39) K and^(87) Rb are obtained by further evaporative cooling in an optical dipole trap at a magnetic field of 372.6 G with the background repulsive interspecies scattering length a_(KRb)= 34 a_(0)(a_(0) is the Bohr radius) and the intraspecies scattering length a_K= 20.05 a_(0).

Molecular collisions:From near-cold to ultra-cold

In the past two decades,the revolutionary technologies of creating cold and ultracold molecules have provided cutting-edge experiments for studying the fundamental phenomena of collision physics.To a large degree,the recent explosion of interest in the molecular collisions has been sparked by dramatic progress of experimental capabilities and theoretical methods,which permit molecular collisions to be explored deep in the quantum mechanical limit.Tremendous experimental advances in the field have already been achieved,and the authors,from an experimental perspective,provide a review of these studies for exploring the nature of molecular collisions occurring at temperatures ranging from the Kelvin to the nanoKelvin regime,as well as for applications of producing ultracold molecules.