Inelastic collisions in radiofrequency-dressed mixtures of ultracold
atoms
Authors:
Elliot Bentine, Adam J Barker, Kathrin Luksch, Shinichi Sunami, Tiffany L Harte, Ben Yuen, Christopher J Foot, Daniel J Owens, Jeremy M Hutson
Abstract:
Radiofrequency (RF)-dressed potentials are a promising technique for
manipulating atomic mixtures, but so far little work has been undertaken to
understand the collisions of atoms held within these traps. In this work, we
dress a mixture of 85Rb and 87Rb with RF radiation, characterize the inelastic
loss that occurs, and demonstrate species-selective manipulations. Our
measurements show the loss is caused by two-body 87Rb+85Rb collisions, and we
show the inelastic rate coefficient varies with detuning from the RF resonance.
We explain our observations using quantum scattering calculations, which give
reasonable agreement with the measurements. The calculations consider magnetic
fields both perpendicular to the plane of RF polarization and tilted with
respect to it. Our findings have important consequences for future experiments
that dress mixtures with RF fields.
