English

Dissipative Binding of Lattice Bosons through Distance-Selective Pair Loss

Atomic Physics 2012-12-12 v2 Quantum Gases Quantum Physics

Abstract

We show that in a gas of ultra cold atoms distance selective two-body loss can be engineered via the resonant laser excitation of atom pairs to interacting electronic states. In an optical lattice this leads to a dissipative Master equation dynamics with Lindblad jump operators that annihilate atom pairs with a specific interparticle distance. In conjunction with coherent hopping between lattice sites this unusual dissipation mechanism leads to the formation of coherent long-lived complexes that can even exhibit an internal level structure which is strongly coupled to their external motion. We analyze this counterintuitive phenomenon in detail in a system of hard-core bosons. While current research has established that dissipation in general can lead to the emergence of coherent features in many-body systems our work shows that strong non-local dissipation can effectuate a binding mechanism for particles.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1207.6291,
  title  = {Dissipative Binding of Lattice Bosons through Distance-Selective Pair Loss},
  author = {C. Ates and B. Olmos and W. Li and I. Lesanovsky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.6291},
  year   = {2012}
}