Feshbach Spectroscopy of Cs Atom Pairs in Optical Tweezers

TL;DR

This paper investigates Feshbach resonances and collision dynamics of Cs atom pairs in optical tweezers, revealing loss features and energy release mechanisms, and demonstrating the tweezers' utility for studying two-body interactions with high sensitivity.

Contribution

It introduces a method for Feshbach spectroscopy of Cs atom pairs in optical tweezers, combining experimental detection with coupled-channel calculations to analyze collision resonances and loss processes.

Findings

Detection of resonant loss features in Cs atom pairs.

Loss features are centered on zeroes in the scattering length.

Optical tweezers enable high-sensitivity, number-resolved collision studies.

Abstract

We prepare pairs of $^{133}$Cs atoms in a single optical tweezer and perform Feshbach spectroscopy for collisions of atoms in the states $(f=3, m_f=\pm3)$. We detect enhancements in pair loss using a detection scheme where the optical tweezers are repeatedly subdivided. For atoms in the state $(3,-3)$, we identify resonant features by performing inelastic loss spectroscopy. We carry out coupled-channel scattering calculations and show that at typical experimental temperatures the loss features are mostly centred on zeroes in the scattering length, rather than resonance centres. We measure the number of atoms remaining after a collision, elucidating how the different loss processes are influenced by the tweezer depth. These measurements probe the energy released during an inelastic collision, and thus give information on the states of the collision products. We also identify resonances with atom pairs prepared in the absolute ground state $(f=3, m_f=3)$, where two-body radiative loss is engineered by an excitation laser blue-detuned from the Cs D$_2$ line. These results demonstrate optical tweezers to be a versatile tool to study two-body collisions with number-resolved detection sensitivity.