Proposal to directly observe the Kondo effect through enhanced photo-induced scattering of cold fermionic and bosonic atoms

Abstract

We propose an experimental protocol to directly observe the Kondo effect by scattering ultracold atoms with spin-dependent interactions. We propose using an optical Feshbach resonance to engineer Kondo-type spin-dependent interactions in a system with ultracold $^6$Li and $^{87}$Rb gases. We calculate the momentum transferred from the $^{87}$Rb gas to the $^6$Li gas in a scattering experiment and show that it has a logarithmically enhanced temperature dependence, characteristic of the Kondo effect and analogous to the resistivity of alloys with magnetic impurities. Experimentally detecting this enhancement will give a different perspective on the Kondo effect, and allow us to explore a rich variety of problems such as the Kondo lattice problem and heavy-fermion systems.