Dipolar atomic spin ensembles in a double-well potential

Abstract

We experimentally study the spin dynamics of mesoscopic ensembles of ultracold magnetic spin-3 atoms located in two separated wells of an optical dipole trap. We use a radio-frequency sweep to selectively flip the spin of the atoms in one of the wells, which produces two separated spin domains of opposite polarization. We observe that these engineered spin domains are metastable with respect to the long-range magnetic dipolar interactions between the two ensembles. The absence of inter-cloud dipolar spin-exchange processes reveals a classical behavior, in contrast to previous results with atoms loaded in an optical lattice. When we merge the two subsystems, we observe spin-exchange dynamics due to contact interactions which enable the first determination of the s-wave scattering length of 52Cr atoms in the S=0 molecular channel a_0=13.5^{+11}_{-10.5}a_B (where a_B is the Bohr radius).

9 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (23)

• The physics of dipolar bosonic quantum gases
• A toolbox for lattice spin models with polar molecules
• Quantum Simulation of Antiferromagnetic Spin Chains in an Optical Lattice
• Realizing a lattice spin model with polar molecules
• Time-resolved Observation and Control of Superexchange Interactions with Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices
• Observation of dipole-dipole interaction in a degenerate quantum gas
• Controlled exchange interaction between pairs of neutral atoms in an optical lattice
• Tunable Superfluidity and Quantum Magnetism with Ultracold Polar Molecules
• Non-equilibrium quantum magnetism in a dipolar lattice gas
• Quantum quench in an atomic one-dimensional Ising chain
• Quantum magnetism with multicomponent polar molecules in an optical lattice
• All-Optical Production of Chromium Bose-Einstein Condensates
• Spin-3 Chromium Bose-Einstein Condensates
• Observation of Feshbach resonances in an ultracold gas of ${}^{52}$Cr
• Anomalous Behavior of Spin Systems with Dipolar Interactions
• ${}^{52}$Cr Spinor Condensate$--$ A Biaxial or Uniaxial Spin Nematic
• Control of dipolar relaxation in external fields
• Anisotropic excitation spectrum of a dipolar quantum Bose gas
• Damagnetization cooling of a gas
• Collective excitations of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate
• Simulating quantum magnets with symmetric top molecules
• Exotic many-body physics with large-spin Fermi gases
• Polar Phase of 1D Bosons with Large Spin

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Dipolar physics: A review of experiments with magnetic quantum gases
• Strongly interacting ultracold polar molecules
• A chromium dipolar Fermi sea
• Exact dynamics of two ultra-cold bosons confined in a one-dimensional double-well potential
• Bose-Einstein Condensation of Europium
• Internal structure and stability of vortices in a dipolar spinor Bose-Einstein condensate
• Spin mixing and protection of ferromagnetism in a spinor dipolar condensate
• Effective two-mode description of a few ultra-cold bosons in a double-well potential
• Cooling of a Bose-Einstein Condensate by spin distillation
• Spin distillation cooling of ultracold Bose gases
• Density engineering via inter-condensate dipole-dipole interactions