Energy-dependent 3-body loss in 1D Bose gases

Abstract

We study the loss of atoms in quantum Newton's cradles (QNCs) with a range of average energies and transverse confinements. We find that the three-body collision rate in one-dimension is strongly energy dependent, as predicted by a strictly 1D theory. We adapt the theory to atoms in waveguides, then using detailed momentum measurements to infer all the collisions that occur, we compare the observed loss to the adapted theory and find that they agree well.