title: Interaction-induced decay of a heteronuclear two-atom system.
abstract: Two-atom systems in small traps are of fundamental interest for understanding the role of interactions in degenerate cold gases and for the creation of quantum gates in quantum information processing with single-atom traps. One of the key quantities is the inelastic relaxation (decay) time when one of the atoms or both are in a higher hyperfine state. Here we measure this quantity in a heteronuclear system of (87)Rb and (85)Rb in a micro optical trap and demonstrate experimentally and theoretically the presence of both fast and slow relaxation processes, depending on the choice of the initial hyperfine states. This experimental method allows us to single out a particular relaxation process thus provides an extremely clean platform for collisional physics studies. Our results have also implications for engineering of quantum states via controlled collisions and creation of two-qubit quantum gates.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|School of Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Jiaheng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|School of Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|School of Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Kunpeng
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: INO-CNR BEC Center and Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Trento, 38123 Povo, Italy.
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Papoular
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques, Université Paris Sud, CNRS, Orsay 91405, France.|Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Russian Quantum Center, Novaya Street 100, Skolkovo, Moscow Region 143025, Russia.
authors.forename: G V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Shlyapnikov
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.|Center for Cold Atom Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
authors.forename: Mingsheng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhan