Understanding the dynamics of short-range correlations is a central challenge in strongly interacting Fermi gases. In ultracold gases, these correlations are quantified by the contact parameter, yet measurements to date have been limited to equilibrium systems or relatively slow, global dynamics. Here, we introduce a rapid spectroscopic technique based on projection of the interacting state onto an alternate scattering channel with a low-lying dimer state. We demonstrate contact measurements on the microsecond timescale-faster than the inverse Fermi energy. Using ^{40}K near a broad s-wave Feshbach resonance, we show that the strength of the dimer-projection feature scales proportionally with the contact parameter extracted from the high-frequency tail of radio-frequency spectroscopy, in agreement with coupled-channels calculations. Analysis of the spectra further reveals that the dimer feature provides the dominant contribution to the clock shift of the unitary Fermi gas, allowing the first experimental bound on this quantity. The observed deviations from universal predictions highlight the importance of multichannel effects. Our results open new avenues for studying contact correlators, hydrodynamic attractors, and quantum critical behavior.

We derive an analog of the Lellouch-Lüscher (LL) relation for few-body bosonic systems, linking few-body scattering loss rates to the energies and widths of the corresponding harmonically trapped few-body states. Three-body numerical simulations show that the LL relation applies across a broad range of interaction strengths and energies and allows the determination of scattering rates within a single partial wave. Our Letter establishes a robust theoretical framework for understanding the role of the finite-volume effect in few-body observables in optical lattice and tweezer experiments, enabling precise determination of multibody scattering rates.

We demonstrate a method for controlling the outcome of an ultracold chemical few-body reaction by redirecting a tunable fraction of reaction flux from one selected product channel to another one. In the reaction, three ultracold atoms collide to form a diatomic molecule. This product molecule can be produced in various internal states, characterizing the different product channels of the reaction. Our scheme relies on the coupling between two such product channels at an avoided molecular energy level crossing in the presence of an external magnetic field. The degree of coupling can be set by the magnetic field strength and allows for a widely tunable flux control between the two channels. This scheme is quite general and also holds great promise for a large variety of chemical processes with diverse species, since molecular energy level crossings are ubiquitous in molecular systems and are often easily accessible by standard laboratory equipment.

We study the isotopic dependence of collisional widths and shifts of the Hg clock transition $$^1$$S$$_0$$–$$^3$$P$$_0$$ perturbed by the Rb atoms in the temperature range from 1 nK to 1 K. For this purpose, we model the Born-Oppenheimer effective interaction potential by including the leading long-range van der Waals coefficients. For elastic collisions, we show the connection between line shape parameters in the $${\upmu }$$K temperature range and scattering lengths in ground and excited states as a function of reduced mass of the colliding Hg and Rb atoms. We confront the full quantum scattering calculations with a semi-classical approximation for collisional widths and shifts. We show that the shape resonances in excited and ground scattering states lead to significant variations of collisional line shape parameters with the change of the reduced mass of colliding atoms. We also indicate the possible influence of inelastic collisions, which could lead to universal behavior and significantly affect the dependence of collisional broadening and shifting on the isotopic combination of colliding atoms.

We theoretically investigate the product-state distribution of weakly bound diatomic van der Waals molecules via ultracold three-body recombination of bosonic alkali atoms. We find a two-level hierarchy of spin propensity rules at zero magnetic field. The primary propensity rule states that nearly all molecular products conserve the total hyperfine spin of reactant atomic pairs, while molecular products not conserving the total spin are highly suppressed. For the dominant molecular products, there is a secondary propensity to conserve certain spin components of the reactant pair such as the atomic hyperfine spins, or the total electronic or nuclear spins. The second propensity varies across species and depends fundamentally on the interplay between effective electronic exchange and hyperfine interactions. The spin sensitivity of product-state distribution can potentially open up new avenues for controlling state-to-state reaction rates in ultracold three-body recombination.

Gaining control over chemical reactions at the quantum level is a central goal of cold and ultracold chemistry. Here we demonstrate a method for coherently steering the reaction flux across different product spin channels for a three-body recombination process in a cloud of trapped cold atoms. We use a magnetically tunable Feshbach resonance to admix, in a controlled way, a specific spin state to the reacting collision complex. This allows us to control the reaction flux into the admixed spin channel, which can be used to alter the reaction products. We also investigate the influence of an Efimov resonance on the reaction dynamics, observing a global enhancement of three-body recombination without favouring particular reaction channels. Our control scheme can be extended to other reaction processes and could be combined with other methods, such as quantum interference of reaction paths, to achieve further tuning capabilities of few-body reactions. Coherent control of chemical reactions is a central theme in quantum chemistry. Now, a cold atom experiment demonstrates a method for steering the outcome of three-body recombination processes using a tunable Feshbach resonance.

We theoretically investigate the spin structure of weakly bound diatomic van der Waals molecules formed by two identical bosonic alkali atoms. Our studies were performed using known Born-Oppenheimer potentials while developing a reduced interaction potential model. Such reduced potential models are currently a key for solving certain classes of few-body problems of atoms as they decrease the numerical burden on the computation. Although the reduced potentials are significantly shallower than actual Born-Oppenheimer potentials, they still capture the main properties of the near-threshold bound states, including their spin structure, and the scattering states over a broad range of magnetic fields. At zero magnetic field, we find that the variation in spin structure across different alkali species originates from the interplay between electronic spin exchange and hyperfine interactions. To characterize this competition we introduce a single parameter that is a function of the singlet and triplet scattering lengths, the atomic hyperfine splitting constant, and the molecular binding energy. We show that this parameter can be used to classify the spin structure of vdW molecules for each atomic species.

Efimov trimers are exotic three-body quantum states that emerge from the different types of three-body continua in the vicinity of two-atom Feshbach resonances. In particular, as the strength of the interaction is decreased to a critical point, an Efimov state merges into the atom-dimer threshold and eventually dissociates into an unbound atom-dimer pair. Here we explore the Efimov state in the vicinity of this critical point using coherent few-body spectroscopy in $^7$Li atoms using a narrow two-body Feshbach resonance. Contrary to the expectation, we find that the $^7$Li Efimov trimer does not immediately dissociate when passing the threshold, and survives as a metastable state embedded in the atom-dimer continuum. We identify this behavior with a universal phenomenon related to the emergence of a repulsive interaction in the atom-dimer channel which reshapes the three-body interactions in any system characterized by a narrow Feshbach resonance. Specifically, our results shed light on the nature of $^7$Li Efimov states and provide a path to understand various puzzling phenomena associated with them.

Three-body recombination is a chemical reaction where the collision of three atoms leads to the formation of a diatomic molecule. In the ultracold regime it is expected that the production rate of a molecule generally decreases with its binding energy Eb, however, its precise dependence and the physics governing it have been left unclear so far. Here we present a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the energy dependency for three-body recombination of ultracold Rb. For this, we determine production rates for molecules in a state-to -state resolved manner, with the binding energies Eb ranging from 0.02 to 77 GHz x h. We find that the formation rate approximately scales as E-alpha b , where alpha is in the vicinity of 1. The formation rate typically varies only within a factor of two for different rotational angular momenta of the molecular product, apart from a possible centrifugal barrier suppression for low binding energies. In addition to numerical three-body calculations we present a perturbative model which reveals the physical origin of the energy scaling of the formation rate. Furthermore, we show that the scaling law potentially holds universally for a broad range of interaction potentials.

A distinguishing feature of ultracold collisions of bosonic lithium atoms is the presence of two near-degenerate two-body continua. The influence of such a near-degeneracy on the few-body physics in the vicinity of a narrow Feshbach resonance is investigated within the framework of a minimal model with two atomic continua and one closed molecular channel. The model allows analysis of the spin composition of loosely bound dimers and trimers. In the two-body sector the well-established coupled-channels calculations phenomenology of lithium is qualitatively reproduced, and its particularities are emphasized and clarified. In the three-body sector we find that the Efimov trimer energy levels follow a different functional form as compared to a single continuum scenario while the thresholds remain untouched. This three-channel model with two atomic continua complements our earlier developed three-channel model with two molecular channels [Y. Yudkin and L. Khaykovich, Phys. Rev. A 103, 063303 (2021)] and suggests that the experimentally observed exotic behavior of the first excited Efimov energy level [Y. Yudkin, R. Elbaz and L. Khaykovich, arXiv:2004.02723] is most probably caused by the short-range details of the interaction potential.

Feshbach resonances of arbitrary width are typically described in terms of two-channel models. Within these models, one usually considers a single dressed resonance, with the option to extend the analysis by including resonant open-channel features that can drastically change the observed threshold effects. For the strong $^{40}\mathrm{K}$ p-wave resonance studied in Ref. \cite{ahmed2021}, the interplay between an open-channel shape resonance and the Feshbach resonance could explain the unexpected nonlinear variation of the binding energy with magnetic field. However, the presented two-channel treatment relies on the introduction of two independent fitting parameters, whereas the typical Breit-Wigner expression would only account for one. This results in an effective magnetic moment that acquires a nonphysical value, which is an indication of a major shortcoming of the two-channel model treatment. In this study, we observe how the presence of a closed-channel shape resonance explains the physical mechanism behind the observations and demonstrates the need of a three-channel treatment. We introduce our novel model as \textit{resonance facilitated}, where all coupling is mediated by the Feshbach state, while there is no direct coupling between the additional channel and the open channel. Notably, the resonance-facilitated structure greatly reduces the complexity of the full three-channel model. The typical Breit-Wigner form of the two-channel Feshbach formalism is retained and the full effect of the added channel can be captured by a single resonance dressing factor, which describes how the free propagation in the Feshbach state is dressed by the added channel.

In the vicinity of a narrow Feshbach resonance Efimov features are expected to be characterized by the resonance's properties rather than the van der Waals length of the interatomic potential. Although this theoretical prediction is well established by now, it still lacks experimental confirmation. Here, we apply our recently developed three-channel model [Y. Yudkin and L. Khaykovich, Efimov scenario for overlapping narrow Feshbach resonances, Phys. Rev. A 103, 063303 (2021)] to the experimental result obtained in a mass-imbalanced $^{6}\mathrm{Li}\text{\ensuremath{-}}^{133}\mathrm{Cs}$ mixture in the vicinity of the narrowest resonance explored to date [J. Johansen, B. J. DeSalvo, K. Patel, and C. Chin, Testing universality of Efimov physics across broad and narrow Feshbach resonances, Nat. Phys. 13, 731 (2017)]. Our analysis suggests that the observed position of the Efimov resonance is dictated mainly by the resonance physics while the influence of the van der Waals tail of the interatomic potential is minor. We show that the resonance position is strongly influenced by the presence of another Feshbach resonance which significantly alters the effective background scattering length at the narrow resonance position.

Experiments aiming to directly detect dark matter through particle recoils can achieve energy thresholds of Oo10 eV thorn . In this regime, ionization signals from small-angle Compton scatters of environmental gamma rays constitute a significant background. Monte Carlo simulations used to build background models have not been experimentally validated at these low energies. We report a precision measurement of Compton scattering on silicon atomic shell electrons down to 23 eV. A skipper charge-coupled device with single -electron resolution, developed for the DAMIC-M experiment, was exposed to a 241Am gamma-ray source over several months. Features associated with the silicon K-, L1-, and L2;3-shells are clearly identified, and scattering on valence electrons is detected for the first time below 100 eV. We find that the relativistic impulse approximation for Compton scattering, which is implemented in Monte Carlo simulations commonly used by direct detection experiments, does not reproduce the measured spectrum below 0.5 keV. The data are in better agreement with ab initio calculations originally developed for x-ray absorption spectroscopy.

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In the vicinity of a narrow Feshbach resonances Efimov features are expected to be characterized by the resonance’s properties rather than the van der Waals length of the interatomic potential. Although this theoretical prediction is well-established by now, it still lacks experimental confirmation. Here, we apply our recently developed three-channel model [1] to the experimental result obtained in a mass-imbalanced Li-Cs mixture in the vicinity of the narrowest resonance explored to date [2]. We confirm that the observed position of the Efimov resonance is dictated mainly by the resonance physics while the influence of the van der Waals tail of the interatomic potential is minor. We show that the resonance position is strongly influenced by the presence of another Feshbach resonance which significantly alters the effective background scattering length at the narrow resonance position.

In the vicinity of a narrow Feshbach resonance Efimov features are expected to be characterized by the resonance's properties rather than the van der Waals length of the interatomic potential. Although this theoretical prediction is well established by now, it still lacks experimental confirmation. Here, we apply our recently developed three-channel model [Y. Yudkin and L. Khaykovich, Efimov scenario for overlapping narrow Feshbach resonances, Phys. Rev. A 103, 063303 (2021)] to the experimental result obtained in a mass-imbalanced 6Li-133Cs mixture in the vicinity of the narrowest resonance explored to date [J. Johansen, B. J. DeSalvo, K. Patel, and C. Chin, Testing universality of Efimov physics across broad and narrow Feshbach resonances, Nat. Phys. 13, 731 (2017)]. Our analysis suggests that the observed position of the Efimov resonance is dictated mainly by the resonance physics while the influence of the van der Waals tail of the interatomic potential is minor. We show that the resonance position is strongly influenced by the presence of another Feshbach resonance which significantly alters the effective background scattering length at the narrow resonance position.

We present a study of interspecies Feshbach resonances in ultracold $^{7}$Li-$^{133}$Cs Bose-Bose mixtures. We locate ten interspecies resonances in three different spin-state combinations. By comparing to coupled-channel calculations, we assign six of the resonances to $s$-wave channels and the rest to $p$-wave channels. We use the $s$-wave resonances to refine the ground-state potentials of LiCs in the coupled-channel calculations and then obtain an accurate characterization of the scattering and bound-state properties of the mixtures. Our results will be useful for future experiments with ultracold $^{7}$Li-$^{133}$Cs mixtures.

We explore the physical origin and the general validity of a propensity rule for the conservation of the hyperfine spin state in three-body recombination. This rule was recently discovered for the special case of ^{87}Rb with its nearly equal singlet and triplet scattering lengths. Here, we test the propensity rule for ^{85}Rb for which the scattering properties are very different from ^{87}Rb. The Rb_{2} molecular product distribution is mapped out in a state-to-state fashion using resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization detection schemes which fully cover all possible molecular spin states. Interestingly, for the experimentally investigated range of binding energies from zero to ∼13  GHz×h we observe that the spin-conservation propensity rule also holds for ^{85}Rb. From these observations and a theoretical analysis we derive an understanding for the conservation of the hyperfine spin state. We identify several criteria to judge whether the propensity rule will also hold for other elements and collision channels.

Interactions between particles are usually a resource for quantum computing, making quantum many-body systems intractable by any known classical algorithm. In contrast, noise is typically considered as being inimical to quantum many-body correlations, ultimately leading the system to a classically tractable state. This work shows that noise represented by two-body processes, such as pair loss, plays the same role as many-body interactions and makes otherwise classically simulable systems universal for quantum computing. We analyze such processes in detail and establish a complexity transition between simulable and nonsimulable systems as a function of a tuning parameter. We determine important classes of simulable and nonsimulable two-body dissipation. Finally, we show how using resonant dissipation in cold atoms can enhance the performance of two-qubit gates.