Stability of Excited Dressed States with Spin-Orbit Coupling

TL;DR

This paper investigates decay mechanisms of ultracold atoms with spin-orbit coupling, presenting theoretical calculations and experimental measurements that reveal how decay rates can be controlled by experimental parameters.

Contribution

It identifies two SOC-induced decay mechanisms and provides general schemes for calculating and controlling decay rates in ultracold atomic systems.

Findings

Decay rates depend on trapping potential and interatomic collisions.

Experimental results agree with theoretical decay rate calculations.

Decay control is feasible through experimental parameter tuning.

Abstract

We study the decay behaviors of ultracold atoms in metastable states with spin-orbit coupling (SOC), and demonstrate that there are two SOC-induced decay mechanisms. One arises from the trapping potential and the other is due to interatomic collision. We present general schemes for calculating decay rates from these two mechanisms, and illustrate how the decay rates can be controlled by experimental parameters.We experimentally measure the decay rates over a broad parameter region, and the results agree well with theoretical calculations. This work provides an insight for both quantum simulation involving metastable dressed states and studies on few-body problems with SO coupling.