Cold chemistry: a few-body perspective on impurity physics of a single ion in an ultracold bath

TL;DR

This paper explores the dynamics of a single charged ion immersed in an ultracold atomic or molecular bath, emphasizing cold chemistry perspectives and external influences like trapping potentials and laser sources.

Contribution

It provides an outlook on approaches for modeling single ion impurity dynamics in ultracold gases, highlighting the impact of external fields and laser sources beyond traditional many-body methods.

Findings

External trapping potentials influence impurity evolution.

Laser sources affect impurity lifetime.

Cold chemistry offers new insights into impurity dynamics.

Abstract

Impurity physics is a traditional topic in condensed matter physics that nowadays is being explored in the field of ultracold gases. Among the different classes of impurities, we focus on charged impurities in an ultracold bath. When a single ion is brought in contact with an ultracold gas it is subjected to different reactive processes that can be understood from a cold chemistry approach. In this work, we present an outlook of approaches for the dynamics of a single ion in a bath of ultracold atoms or molecules, complementing the usual many-body approaches characteristic of impurity physics within condensed matter physics. In particular, we focus on the evolution of a charged impurity in different baths, including external time-dependent trapping potentials and we explore the effect of the external laser sources present in ion-neutral hybrid traps into the lifetime of an impurity.