TY - JOUR
T1 - Dynamics of a Ground-State Cooled Ion Colliding with Ultracold Atoms
AU - Meir, Ziv
AU - Sikorsky, Tomas
AU - Ben Shlomi, Ruti
AU - Akerman, Nitzan
AU - Dallal, Yehonatan
AU - Ozeri, Roee
PY - 2016/12/7
Y1 - 2016/12/7
N2 - Ultracold atom-ion mixtures are gaining increasing interest due to their potential applications in ultracold and state-controlled chemistry, quantum computing, and many-body physics. Here, we studied the dynamics of a single ground-state cooled ion during few, to many, Langevin (spiraling) collisions with ultracold atoms. We measured the ion's energy distribution and observed a clear deviation from the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, characterized by an exponential tail, to a power-law distribution best described by a Tsallis function. Unlike previous experiments, the energy scale of atom-ion interactions is not determined by either the atomic cloud temperature or the ion's trap residual excess-micromotion energy. Instead, it is determined by the force the atom exerts on the ion during a collision which is then amplified by the trap dynamics. This effect is intrinsic to ion Paul traps and sets the lower bound of atomion steady-state interaction energy in these systems. Despite the fact that our system is eventually driven out of the ultracold regime, we are capable of studying quantum effects by limiting the interaction to the first collision when the ion is initialized in the ground state of the trap.
AB - Ultracold atom-ion mixtures are gaining increasing interest due to their potential applications in ultracold and state-controlled chemistry, quantum computing, and many-body physics. Here, we studied the dynamics of a single ground-state cooled ion during few, to many, Langevin (spiraling) collisions with ultracold atoms. We measured the ion's energy distribution and observed a clear deviation from the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, characterized by an exponential tail, to a power-law distribution best described by a Tsallis function. Unlike previous experiments, the energy scale of atom-ion interactions is not determined by either the atomic cloud temperature or the ion's trap residual excess-micromotion energy. Instead, it is determined by the force the atom exerts on the ion during a collision which is then amplified by the trap dynamics. This effect is intrinsic to ion Paul traps and sets the lower bound of atomion steady-state interaction energy in these systems. Despite the fact that our system is eventually driven out of the ultracold regime, we are capable of studying quantum effects by limiting the interaction to the first collision when the ion is initialized in the ground state of the trap.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85003608931&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.243401
DO - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.243401
M3 - مقالة
C2 - 28009205
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 117
JO - Physical review letters
JF - Physical review letters
IS - 24
M1 - 243401
ER -