Atoms and molecules in lattices: Bose-Einstein condensates built on a shared vacuum.
In optical lattices where each site is occupied in its lowest energy state by a superposition of zero, one, and two atoms, one can in a controllable manner convert the atomic pair into a molecule while retaining the vacuum and one-atom amplitudes. The microscopic quantum coherence on each site between the vacuum and the single molecule component leads to a macroscopically populated molecular condensate when the lattice is removed.
Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
Tilman
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Esslinger
Klaus
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