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 (7)

• Quantum Simulation of Antiferromagnetic Spin Chains in an Optical Lattice
• 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
• All-Optical Production of Chromium Bose-Einstein Condensates
• Anomalous Behavior of Spin Systems with Dipolar Interactions
• Exotic many-body physics with large-spin Fermi gases

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Strongly interacting ultracold polar molecules
• A chromium dipolar Fermi sea
• Effective two-mode description of a few ultra-cold bosons in a double-well potential