Observation of Reduced Three-Body Recombination in a Fermionized 1D Bose Gas

TL;DR

This study measures the reduction of three-body recombination in a 1D Bose gas, revealing intermediate correlations between mean-field and strongly correlated regimes, indicating enhanced control over quantum many-body states.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental measurement of reduced three-body recombination in a 1D Bose gas loaded into an optical lattice, demonstrating correlation effects beyond mean-field theory.

Findings

Recombination rate coefficient is seven times smaller in the optical lattice

Reduced local three-body correlation function observed in 1D regime

Evidence of intermediate correlation between mean-field and Tonks-Girardeau regimes

Abstract

We investigate correlation properties of a one-dimensional interacting Bose gas by loading a magnetically trapped 87-Rb Bose-Einstein condensate into a deep two-dimensional optical lattice. We measure the three-body recombination rate for both the BEC in the magnetic trap and the BEC loaded into the optical lattice. The recombination rate coefficient is a factor of seven smaller in the lattice, which we interpret as a reduction in the local three-body correlation function in the 1D case. This is a signature of correlation intermediate between that of the uncorrelated phase coherent 1D mean-field regime and the strongly correlated Tonks-Girardeau regime.