JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
Science. 2015 Nov 6;350(6261):659-62. doi: 10.1126/science.aac6400.
Ultracold polar molecules, with their long-range electric dipolar interactions, offer a unique platform for studying correlated quantum many-body phenomena. However, realizing a highly degenerate quantum gas of molecules with a low entropy per particle is challenging. We report the synthesis of a low-entropy quantum gas of potassium-rubidium molecules (KRb) in a three-dimensional optical lattice. We simultaneously load into the optical lattice a Mott insulator of bosonic Rb atoms and a single-band insulator of fermionic K atoms. Then, using magnetoassociation and optical state transfer, we efficiently produce ground-state molecules in the lattice at those sites that contain one Rb and one K atom. The achieved filling fraction of 25% should enable future studies of transport and entanglement propagation in a many-body system with long-range dipolar interactions.
超冷极性分子具有长程电偶极相互作用,为研究相关的量子多体现象提供了独特的平台。然而,实现具有低粒子熵的高度简并量子分子气体是具有挑战性的。我们报告了在三维光晶格中合成具有低熵的钾-铷分子(KRb)量子气体。我们同时将玻色原子的莫特绝缘体能级和费米原子的单能带绝缘体能级装载到光晶格中。然后,通过磁缔合和光态转移,我们在包含一个铷原子和一个钾原子的晶格位置上高效地产生了基态分子。所实现的 25%填充分数应该能够为未来研究具有长程偶极相互作用的多体系统中的输运和纠缠传播提供支持。