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Controlled state-to-state atom-exchange reaction in an ultracold atom–dimer mixture

Nature Physics volume 13, pages 699–703 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Ultracold molecules offer remarkable opportunities for the study of chemical reactions close to zero temperature. Although significant progress has been achieved in exploring ultracold bimolecular reactions, the investigations are usually limited to measurements of the overall loss rates of the reactants. Detection of the reaction products will improve our understanding of the reaction mechanism and provide a unique opportunity to study the state-to-state reaction dynamics. Here we report on the direct observation of an exoergic atom-exchange reaction in an ultracold atom–dimer mixture. Both the atom and molecule products are observed and the state-to-state reaction rate coefficient is measured. By changing the magnetic field, the reaction can be switched on or off, and the rate coefficient can be controlled. The observed atom-exchange reaction is an effective spin-exchange interaction between the dimer and the atom and may be exploited to study the Kondo effect with ultracold atoms.

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Figure 1: Binding energy of the Feshbach molecules and released energy in the reaction.
Figure 2: Preparation and detection scheme and observation of the atom products.
Figure 3: Preparation and detection scheme and observation of the molecule and atom products.
Figure 4: Reaction dynamics and the reaction rate coefficient.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank X.-M. Yang for helpful discussions, and I. Nosske for carefully reading the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (under Grant No.11521063, 11274292, 11374284, and 11425417), the National Fundamental Research Program (under Grant No. 2013CB922001 and 2013CB336800), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Author notes

  1. Jun Rui and Huan Yang: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, Shanghai Branch, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China

    Jun Rui, Huan Yang, Lan Liu, De-Chao Zhang, Ya-Xiong Liu, Jue Nan, Yu-Ao Chen, Bo Zhao & Jian-Wei Pan

  2. CAS Center for Excellence and Synergetic Innovation Center in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai 201315, China

    Jun Rui, Huan Yang, Lan Liu, De-Chao Zhang, Ya-Xiong Liu, Jue Nan, Yu-Ao Chen, Bo Zhao & Jian-Wei Pan

  3. CAS-Alibaba Quantum Computing Laboratory, Shanghai 201315, China

    Jun Rui, Huan Yang, Lan Liu, De-Chao Zhang, Ya-Xiong Liu, Jue Nan, Yu-Ao Chen, Bo Zhao & Jian-Wei Pan

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  1. Jun Rui
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Contributions

Y.-A.C., B.Z. and J.-W.P. conceived the experiments. J.R., H.Y., L.L., D.-C.Z. and Y.-X.L. carried out the experiments. J.N. and B.Z. performed the numerical calculations. All authors analysed the data and contributed to the writing of the paper. B.Z. and J.-W.P. supervised the work.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bo Zhao or Jian-Wei Pan.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Rui, J., Yang, H., Liu, L. et al. Controlled state-to-state atom-exchange reaction in an ultracold atom–dimer mixture. Nature Phys 13, 699–703 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys4095

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