Synthetic partial waves in ultracold atomic collisions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a light-dressing technique to modify ultracold atomic interactions, enabling the observation of higher angular momentum scattering states beyond the usual s-wave, with potential applications in quantum simulation.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate a novel method to alter atomic interactions using optical dressing, creating effective long-range interactions and higher angular momentum scattering in ultracold gases.

Findings

Observation of d- and g-wave scattering contributions

Alteration of s-wave scattering distribution

Potential for simulating exotic quantum systems

Abstract

Interactions between particles can be strongly altered by their environment. We demonstrate a technique for modifying interactions between ultracold atoms by dressing the bare atomic states with light, creating an effective interaction of vastly increased range that scatters states of finite relative angular momentum at collision energies where only s-wave scattering would normally be expected. We collided two optically dressed neutral atomic Bose-Einstein condensates with equal, and opposite, momenta and observed that the usual s-wave distribution of scattered atoms was altered by the appearance of d- and g-wave contributions. This technique is expected to enable quantum simulation of exotic systems, including those predicted to support Majorana fermions.