Dynamics of a Ground-State Cooled Ion Colliding with Ultracold Atoms

Ziv Meir, Tomas Sikorsky, Ruti Ben Shlomi, Nitzan Akerman, Yehonatan Dallal, Roee Ozeri

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

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.
Original languageEnglish
Article number243401
Number of pages5
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume117
Issue number24
DOIs
StatePublished - 7 Dec 2016

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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