Realization of a Strongly Interacting Bose-Fermi Mixture from a Two-Component Fermi Gas

Journal Article · Fri Aug 15 00:00:00 EDT 2008 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.101.070404· OSTI ID:21134123

Yongil, Shin; Schirotzek, Andre; Schunck, Christian H; Ketterle, Wolfgang ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)

We show the emergence of a strongly interacting Bose-Fermi mixture from a two-component Fermi mixture with population imbalance. By analyzing in situ density profiles of {sup 6}Li atoms in the BCS-BEC crossover regime, we identify a critical interaction strength, beyond which all minority atoms pair up with majority atoms and form a Bose condensate. This is the regime where the system can be effectively described as a boson-fermion mixture. We determine the dimer-fermion and dimer-dimer scattering lengths and beyond-mean-field contributions. Our study realizes a gedanken experiment of bosons immersed in a Fermi sea of one of their constituents, revealing the composite nature of the bosons.

• OSTI ID: 21134123
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 7; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.070404; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ATOMS
BCS THEORY
BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
BOSONS
DENSITY
FERMI GAS
FERMIONS
LITHIUM 6
MEAN-FIELD THEORY
MIXTURES
SCATTERING LENGTHS