1998/05/25 by Timmermans, Eddy, Tommasini, Paolo, Cote, Robin +2
#Condensed Matter (cond-mat) #FOS: Physical sciences
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/9805323
Recently, effects of Feshbach resonances in atom-atom interactions were observed by varying the external magnetic field of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). We point out that the quasi-bound molecules created in the intermediate state of the resonance can form a second, molecular condensate. The many-body state of the system is then a hybrid atomic/molecular condensate with inter-condensate tunneling of atom pairs. A sudden variation of the magnetic field results in oscillations of the number of atoms and molecules in their respective condensates, providing a signature of this novel type of quantum tunneling.