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Ultracold mixtures of metastable He and Rb: Scattering lengths from ab initio calculations and thermalization measurements

S. Knoop, P. S. Żuchowski, D. Kȩdziera, Ł. Mentel, M. Puchalski, H. P. Mishra, A. S. Flores, and W. Vassen
Phys. Rev. A 90, 022709 – Published 13 August 2014

Abstract

We have investigated the ultracold interspecies scattering properties of metastable triplet He and Rb. We performed state-of-the-art ab initio calculations of the relevant interaction potential, and measured the interspecies elastic cross section for an ultracold mixture of metastable triplet He4 and Rb87 in a quadrupole magnetic trap at a temperature of 0.5 mK. Our combined theoretical and experimental study gives an interspecies scattering length a4+87=+174+1a0, which prior to this work was unknown. More general, our work shows the possibility of obtaining accurate scattering lengths using ab initio calculations for a system containing a heavy, many-electron atom, such as Rb.

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  • Received 17 April 2014
  • Revised 15 July 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.90.022709

©2014 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

S. Knoop1,*, P. S. Żuchowski2,†, D. Kȩdziera3, Ł. Mentel4, M. Puchalski5, H. P. Mishra1, A. S. Flores1, and W. Vassen1

  • 1LaserLaB, Department of Physics and Astronomy, VU University, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 2Institute of Physics, Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Grudziadzka 5, 87-100 Torun, Poland
  • 3Department of Chemistry, Nicolaus Copernicus University, 7 Gagarin Street, 87-100 Torun, Poland
  • 4Section of Theoretical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, VU University, De Boelelaan 1083, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 5Faculty of Chemistry, Adam Mickiewicz University, Umultowska 89b, 61-614 Poznań, Poland

  • *s.knoop@vu.nl
  • pzuch@fizyka.umk.pl

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Issue

Vol. 90, Iss. 2 — August 2014

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