Related papers: Inelastic Collisions in Optically Trapped Ultracol…
We study the prospects of using transitions from the ytterbium ground state to metastable states $^3{\rm P}^{\rm o}_2$ at $E=19\,710.388~$cm$^{-1}$ and $4f^{13}5d6s^2\,(J=2)$ at $E=23\,188.518~$cm$^{-1}$ as clock transitions in an optical…
The hyperfine constants of the $^3$P$^{\circ}_2$ state in neutral Yb have been measured using three different dipole transitions. This state was recently shown to have a comparatively large hyperfine magnetic octupole splitting, and thus a…
We report on high-resolution optical spectroscopy of interacting bosonic $^{174}$Yb atoms in deep optical lattices with negligible tunneling. We prepare Mott insulator phases with singly- and doubly-occupied isolated sites and probe the…
We report calculations designed to assess the ultimate precision of an atomic clock based on the 578 nm $6 ^1S_0 --> 6 ^3P^o_0$ transition in Yb atoms confined in an optical lattice trap. We find that this transition has a natural linewidth…
Reaching high densities is a key step towards cold-collision experiments with polyatomic molecules. We use a cryofuge to load up to 2$\times10^7$ CH$_3$F molecules into a box-like electric trap, achieving densities up to 10$^7$/cm$^3$ at…
We theoretically evaluate the feasibility to form magnetically-tunable Feshbach molecules in collisions between fermionic $^6$Li atoms and bosonic metastable $^{174}$Yb($^3$P$_2$) atoms. In contrast to the well-studied alkali-metal atom…
We study cold heteronuclear atom ion collisions by immersing a trapped single ion into an ultracold atomic cloud. Using ultracold atoms as reaction targets, our measurement is sensitive to elastic collisions with extremely small energy…
We present a scheme to embed molecular anions in a gas of ultracold rubidium atoms as a route towards the preparation of cold molecular ions by collisional cooling with ultracold atoms. Associative detachment as an important loss process in…
We report on progress towards performing precision measurements of parity violation in Yb, in which the theoretical prediction for a strong weak-interaction-induced effect in the 6s^{2} ^{1}S_{0} \rightarrow 5d6s ^{3}D_{1} optical…
We calculate and measure the magic wavelengths for the $6s^2{}\,^1S_0-6s6p\,{}^3P_1$ intercombination transition of the neutral ytterbium atom. The calculation is performed with the \textit{ab initio} configuration interaction (CI) +…
We have calculated elastic and state-resolved inelastic cross sections for cold and ultracold collisions in the Rb($^1 S$) + OH($^2 \Pi_{3/2}$) system, including fine-structure and hyperfine effects. We have developed a new set of five…
The complex collisional properties of atoms fundamentally limit investigations into a range of processes in many-atom ensembles. In contrast, the bottom-up assembly of few- and many-body systems from individual atoms offers a controlled…
Efficient high-fidelity ground-state cooling of motional degrees of freedom is crucial for applications in quantum simulation, computing and metrology. Here, we demonstrate direct ground-state cooling of fermionic $^{171}$Yb and bosonic…
We propose a stroboscopic method to dynamically decouple the effects of two-body atom-atom interactions for ultracold atoms, and realize a system dominated by elastic three-body interactions. Using this method, we show that it is possible…
An optical microtrap is realized on a dielectric surface by crossing a tightly focused laser beam with an horizontal evanescent-wave atom mirror. The nondissipative trap is loaded with $\sim$$10^5$ cesium atoms through elastic collisions…
We use an all-optical trap to confine a strongly attractive two-state mixture of lithium fermions. By measuring the rate of evaporation from the trap, we determine the effective elastic scattering cross section (4 PI a^2) to show that the…
The formation of ultracold metastable RbCs molecules is observed in a double species magneto-optical trap through photoassociation below the ^85Rb(5S_1/2)+^133Cs(6P_3/2) dissociation limit followed by spontaneous emission. The molecules are…
We investigate the ultracold collisions of rotationally excited dipolar molecules in free-space, taking the hetero-nuclear bi-alkali molecule of KRb as an example. We show that we can sharply tune the elastic, inelastic and reactive rate…
We observe magnetically tuned collision resonances for ultracold Cs2 molecules stored in a CO2-laser trap. By magnetically levitating the molecules against gravity, we precisely measure their magnetic moment. We find an avoided level…
We report on the sub-Doppler laser cooling of neutral $^{171}$Yb and $^{173}$Yb in a magneto-optical trap using the $^{1}S_{0}$-$^{1}P_{1}$ transition at 398.9nm. We use two independent means to estimate the temperature of the atomic cloud…