Diatomic Molecules in Ultracold Fermi Gases: Novel Composite Bosons

Directeur de Recherche, Laboratoire de Physique Theorique et Modeles Statistique, Universite Paris-Sud XI, Orsay, France

11am, Monday 7 February 2005, Seminar Room AR103, Graduate Research Centre

I will give an overview of recent studies of weakly bound homonuclear molecules in ultracold two-component Fermi gases. These molecules represent novel composite bosons, which exhibit features of Fermi statistics at short intermolecular distances. In particular, Pauli exclusion principle for identical fermionic atoms provides a strong suppression of collisional relaxation of such molecules into deep bound states. I will then discuss heteronuclear molecules which are expected to be formed in mixtures of different fermionic atoms. I will show how an increase in the mass ratio for the constituent atoms changes the physics of collisional stability of such molecules compared to the case of homonuclear ones. I will discuss Bose-Einstein condensation of these composite bosons and draw prospects for future studies.

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