Confinement controlled dissociation of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate

TL;DR

This paper investigates how tight harmonic confinement influences the dissociation of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate into bosonic fragments, revealing control mechanisms based on trap size and resonance properties.

Contribution

It introduces a method to control molecular dissociation channels in BECs through trap size manipulation, highlighting a new aspect of 'superchemistry' control.

Findings

Dissociation occurs only if trap size exceeds the healing length.

Control of reaction outcome is possible via trap frequency adjustments.

Selective channel amplification depends on mass and polarizability differences.

Abstract

We study the collective two-channel dissociation dynamics of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate into bosonic fragments under tight harmonic confinement. Bose-stimulated dissociation in either channel can only take place provided that the respective trap size $l_i$ for the fragments is large with respect to the healing length $\zeta_i$ of the atom-molecule resonance. Thus, even when both channels are equally coupled, differences in mass or in dynamical polarizability enable the control of the reaction outcome by variation of the trap frequency. In particular, if $l_1>\zeta_1$ and $l_2<\zeta_2$, only the first channel will be amplified. This behavior demonstrate a unique feature of 'superchemistry' wherein a chemical reaction may be controlled by the manipulation of the reaction vessel.