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Measurement of the interaction strength in a Bose-Fermi mixture with Rb87 and K40

J. Goldwin, S. Inouye, M. L. Olsen, B. Newman, B. D. DePaola, and D. S. Jin
Phys. Rev. A 70, 021601(R) – Published 11 August 2004

Abstract

A quantum degenerate, dilute gas mixture of bosonic and fermionic atoms was produced using Rb87 and K40. The onset of degeneracy was confirmed by observing the spatial distribution of the gases after time-of-flight expansion. Furthermore, the magnitude of the interspecies scattering length between the doubly spin-polarized states of Rb87 and K40, aRbK, was determined from cross-dimensional thermal relaxation. The uncertainty in this collision measurement was greatly reduced by taking the ratio of interspecies and intraspecies relaxation rates, yielding aRbK=250±30a0, which is a lower value than what was reported in [M. Modugno et al., Phys. Rev. A 68, 043626 (2003)]. Using the value for aRbK reported here, current T=0 theory would predict a threshold for mechanical instability that is inconsistent with the experimentally observed onset for sudden loss of fermions in [G. Modugno et al., Science 297, 2240 (2002)].

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  • Received 5 May 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.70.021601

©2004 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

J. Goldwin, S. Inouye, M. L. Olsen, B. Newman*, B. D. DePaola, and D. S. Jin

  • JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

  • *Present address: Department of Physics, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
  • Permanent address: J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA.
  • Quantum Physics Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

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Vol. 70, Iss. 2 — August 2004

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