Chaotic scattering in ultracold atom-ion collisions

We report on signatures of classical chaos in ultracold collisions between a trapped ion and a free atom. Using numerical simulations, we show that the scattering dynamics can be highly sensitive to initial conditions for various mass ratios and trapping frequencies, indicating the onset of chaos. We quantify this chaotic dynamics by calculating its fractal dimension. We show that for a trapped ⁸⁸Sr⁺ ion and a free ⁸⁷Rb atom chaotic dynamic appears under experimentally relevant conditions, and find its characteristic energy scale. The observation of classical chaos in atom-trapped-ion collisions suggests that signatures of quantum chaos might appear, for example, through a Wigner-Dyson distribution of collisional resonances.