Abstract
The introduction of optical tweezers for trapping atoms has opened remarkable opportunities for manipulating few-body systems. Here, we present the first bottom-up assembly of atom triads. We directly observe atom loss through inelastic collisions at the single event level, overcoming the substantial challenge in many-atom experiments of distinguishing one-, two-, and three-particle processes. We measure a strong suppression of three-body loss, which is not fully explained by the presently availably theory for three-body processes. The suppression of losses could indicate the presence of local anticorrelations due to the interplay of attractive short range interactions and low dimensional confinement. Our methodology opens a promising pathway in experimental few-body dynamics.
- Received 29 October 2019
- Accepted 15 January 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.073401
© 2020 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Synopsis
Watching Three Atoms Collide
Published 18 February 2020
Using optical tweezers, researchers bring together three atoms in a controlled manner, allowing them to observe three-body collisions.
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