Dynamics of Feshbach Molecules in an Ultracold Three-Component Mixture

TL;DR

This paper studies the formation, stability, and reaction rates of lithium Feshbach molecules in an ultracold three-component mixture with ytterbium, revealing long lifetimes and stability in the strongly interacting regime.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the collisional stability and reaction dynamics of Feshbach molecules in a mixed quantum gas with a bath species.

Findings

Long molecule lifetimes (> 100 ms) observed.

Good collisional stability in the unitary regime.

Reaction rate coefficients extracted.

Abstract

We present investigations of the formation rate and collisional stability of lithium Feshbach molecules in an ultracold three-component mixture composed of two resonantly interacting fermionic 6-Li spin states and bosonic 174-Yb. We observe long molecule lifetimes (> 100 ms) even in the presence of a large ytterbium bath and extract reaction rate coefficients of the system. We find good collisional stability of the mixture in the unitary regime, opening new possibilities for studies and probes of strongly interacting quantum gases in contact with a bath species.