Collisional stability of localized Yb(3P2) atoms immersed in a Fermi sea of Li

Abstract

We establish an experimental method for a detailed investigation of inelastic collisional properties between ytterbium (Yb) in the metastable ${}^{3}{{\rm{P}}}_{2}$ state and ground state lithium (Li). By combining an optical lattice and a direct excitation to the ${}^{3}{{\rm{P}}}_{2}$ state we achieve high selectivity on the collisional partners. Using this method we determine inelastic loss coefficients in collisions between ^174 Yb( ${}^{3}{{\rm{P}}}_{2}$ ) with magnetic sublevels of m _J = 0 and −2 and ground state ^6 Li to be $(4.4\pm 0.3)\times {10}^{-11}\,{\mathrm{cm}}^{3}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}$ and $(4.7\pm 0.8)\times {10}^{-11}\,{\mathrm{cm}}^{3}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}$ , respectively. Absence of spin changing processes in Yb( ${}^{3}{{\rm{P}}}_{2}$ )–Li inelastic collisions at low magnetic fields is confirmed by inelastic loss measurements on the m _J = 0 state. We also demonstrate that our method allows us to look into loss processes in few-body systems separately.

Keywords

• quantum degenerate atomic mixtures
• metastable state
• inelastic collisions
• 34.50.-s
• 67.85.-d