De Marco Luigi, Valtolina Giacomo, Matsuda Kyle, Tobias William G, Covey Jacob P, Ye Jun
JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
Department of Physics, University of Colorado, 440 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
Science. 2019 Feb 22;363(6429):853-856. doi: 10.1126/science.aau7230. Epub 2019 Jan 17.
Experimental realization of a quantum degenerate gas of molecules would provide access to a wide range of phenomena in molecular and quantum sciences. However, the very complexity that makes ultracold molecules so enticing has made reaching degeneracy an outstanding experimental challenge over the past decade. We now report the production of a degenerate Fermi gas of ultracold polar molecules of potassium-rubidium. Through coherent adiabatic association in a deeply degenerate mixture of a rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate and a potassium Fermi gas, we produce molecules at temperatures below 0.3 times the Fermi temperature. We explore the properties of this reactive gas and demonstrate how degeneracy suppresses chemical reactions, making a long-lived degenerate gas of polar molecules a reality.
分子量子简并气体的实验实现将为分子科学和量子科学中的广泛现象提供研究途径。然而，正是这种使超冷分子极具吸引力的复杂性，在过去十年里使得实现简并成为一项极具挑战性的实验难题。我们现在报告钾-铷超冷极性分子简并费米气体的制备。通过在铷玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体和钾费米气体的深度简并混合物中进行相干绝热缔合，我们在低于费米温度0.3倍的温度下制备出了分子。我们探索了这种反应性气体的性质，并证明了简并如何抑制化学反应，从而使长寿命的极性分子简并气体成为现实。
