%0 Journal Article %J Nature Communications %D 2018 %T Observation of bound state self-interaction in a nano-eV atom collider %A Ryan Thomas %A Matthew Chilcott %A Eite Tiesinga %A Amita B. Deb %A Niels Kjærgaard %X

Quantum mechanical scattering resonances for colliding particles occur when a continuum scattering state couples to a discrete bound state between them. The coupling also causes the bound state to interact with itself via the continuum and leads to a shift in the bound state energy, but, lacking knowledge of the bare bound state energy, measuring this self-energy via the resonance position has remained elusive. Here, we report on the direct observation of self-interaction by using a nano-eV atom collider to track the position of a magnetically-tunable Feshbach resonance through a parameter space spanned by energy and magnetic field. Our system of potassium and rubidium atoms displays a strongly non-monotonic resonance trajectory with an exceptionally large self-interaction energy arising from an interplay between the Feshbach bound state and a different, virtual bound state at a fixed energy near threshold.

%B Nature Communications %V 9 %8 2018/11/20 %G eng %U https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.01174 %N 4895 %R https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07375-8