Number statistics of molecules formed from ultra-cold atoms

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the quantum statistical properties of molecules formed from ultra-cold atoms, revealing how different initial atomic states influence the coherence and statistics of the resulting molecular field.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of molecule formation from BEC, Fermi gas, and BCS states, highlighting the transition from incoherent to coherent molecular fields.

Findings

Molecule formation from BEC results in a coherent molecular state.

Normal Fermi gas leads to a molecular state similar to chaotic light.

BCS state transitions from incoherent to coherent molecular fields as the gap increases.

Abstract

We calculate the number statistics of a single-mode molecular field excited by photoassociation or via a Feshbach resonance from an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a normal atomic Fermi gas and a Fermi system with pair correlations (BCS state). We find that the molecule formation from a BEC is a collective process that leads for short times to a coherent molecular state in the quantum optical sense. Atoms in a normal Fermi gas, on the other hand, are converted into molecules independently of each other and result for short times in a molecular state analogous to that of a classical chaotic light source. The BCS situation is intermediate between the two and goes from producing an incoherent to a coherent molecular field with increasing gap parameter.