title: Energy Scaling of Cold Atom-Atom-Ion Three-Body Recombination.
abstract: We study three-body recombination of Ba^{+}+Rb+Rb in the mK regime where a single ^{138}Ba^{+} ion in a Paul trap is immersed into a cloud of ultracold ^{87}Rb atoms. We measure the energy dependence of the three-body rate coefficient k_{3} and compare the results to the theoretical prediction, k_{3}∝E_{col}^{-3/4}, where E_{col} is the collision energy. We find agreement if we assume that the nonthermal ion energy distribution is determined by at least two different micromotion induced energy scales. Furthermore, using classical trajectory calculations we predict how the median binding energy of the formed molecules scales with the collision energy. Our studies give new insights into the kinetics of an ion immersed in an ultracold atom cloud and yield important prospects for atom-ion experiments targeting the s-wave regime.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Quantenmaterie and Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology (IQST), Universität Ulm, 89069 Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Artjom
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Krükow
authors.affiliation: Institut für Quantenmaterie and Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology (IQST), Universität Ulm, 89069 Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mohammadi
authors.affiliation: Institut für Quantenmaterie and Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology (IQST), Universität Ulm, 89069 Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Arne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Härter
authors.affiliation: Institut für Quantenmaterie and Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology (IQST), Universität Ulm, 89069 Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes Hecker
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Denschlag
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA.
authors.forename: Jesús
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pérez-Ríos
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA.
authors.forename: Chris H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Greene