DOI: 10.1126/science.1093280. Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules

10.1126/science.1093280

Crossref journal-article

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Science (221)

Abstract

We report on the Bose-Einstein condensation of more than 10 5 Li 2 molecules in an optical trap starting from a spin mixture of fermionic lithium atoms. During forced evaporative cooling, the molecules are formed by three-body recombination near a Feshbach resonance and finally condense in a long-lived thermal equilibrium state. We measured the characteristic frequency of a collective excitation mode and demonstrated the magnetic field–dependent mean field by controlled condensate spilling.

Bibliography

Jochim, S., Bartenstein, M., Altmeyer, A., Hendl, G., Riedl, S., Chin, C., Hecker Denschlag, J., & Grimm, R. (2003). Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules. Science, 302(5653), 2101â2103.

Authors 8

S. Jochim (first)
M. Bartenstein (additional)
A. Altmeyer (additional)
G. Hendl (additional)
S. Riedl (additional)
C. Chin (additional)
J. Hecker Denschlag (additional)
R. Grimm (additional)

References 44 Referenced 984

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10.1038/417529a
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10.1126/science.1088876
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K. Xu et al. preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0310027.
10.1038/nature01738
10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.080406
J. Cubizolles T. Bourdel S. J. J. M. F. Kokkelmans G. V. Shlyapnikov C. Salomon preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0308018.
S. Jochim et al. Phys. Rev. Lett . in press (preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0308095).
10.1038/32354
C. A. Regal M. Greiner D. S. Jin preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0308606.
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The position of the Feshbach resonance is known to within a few tens of Gauss. All numbers given for the scattering lengths and binding energies are subject to a corresponding systematic error.
10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.203201
10.1364/OL.26.001837
We measure the atom number via fluorescence detection after recapture into a magneto-optical trap. In order to avoid molecule formation and loss when the Feshbach tuning field is ramped down before detection we heat the sample by abruptly turning on the full laser power of the optical dipole trap. At low phase-space densities the thermal gas is not affected by the downward Feshbach ramp ( 13 ).
10.1103/PhysRevA.64.051403
We know that only the weakly bound state is populated because the release of binding energy in a three-body process would otherwise lead to immediate trap loss. Moreover our dissociation-based detection is sensitive only to molecules in this state.
C. Chin R. Grimm preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0309078.
S. J. J. M. F. Kokkelmans G. V. Shlyapnikov C. Salomon preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0308384.
For the harmonically approximated trap with same frequencies and twice the depth the molecules have eight times more quantum states than the atoms. The lower ω z at 764 G as compared to 1176 G gives another factor of 1.24.
10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.2360
10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.500
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A noncondensed ensemble in the hydrodynamic regime where the elastic collision rate exceeds all other time scales would rapidly cool down by evaporation to temperatures far below the trap depth and thus form a BEC.
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10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.10
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10.1016/S0375-9601(01)00346-2
10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.130402
We thank P. Zoller for very useful discussions and for stimulating the measurement of the collective excitation frequency. We acknowledge support by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) within Spezialforschungsbereich 15 (project part 15) and by the European Union through the Cold Molecules Training and Mobility of Researchers Network under contract no. HPRN-CT-2002-00290. C.C. is a Lise-Meitner fellow of the FWF.

Dates

Type	When
Created	21 years, 9 months ago (Nov. 17, 2003, 8:12 p.m.)
Deposited	1 year, 7 months ago (Jan. 9, 2024, 9:12 p.m.)
Indexed	1 week ago (Aug. 19, 2025, 7:07 a.m.)
Issued	21 years, 8 months ago (Dec. 19, 2003)
Published	21 years, 8 months ago (Dec. 19, 2003)
Published Print	21 years, 8 months ago (Dec. 19, 2003)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Jochim_2003, title={Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules}, volume={302}, ISSN={1095-9203}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1093280}, DOI={10.1126/science.1093280}, number={5653}, journal={Science}, publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)}, author={Jochim, S. and Bartenstein, M. and Altmeyer, A. and Hendl, G. and Riedl, S. and Chin, C. and Hecker Denschlag, J. and Grimm, R.}, year={2003}, month=dec, pages={2101–2103} }

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