Suppression of Three-Body Loss Near a p-Wave Resonance Due to Quasi-1D Confinement

Abstract

We investigate the three-body recombination rate of a Fermi gas of $^6$Li atoms confined in quasi-1D near a $p$-wave Feshbach resonance. We confirm that the quasi-1D loss rate constant $K_3$ follows the predicted threshold scaling law that $K_3$ is energy independent on resonance, and find consistency with the scaling law $K_3 \propto (k \, a_{1D})^6$ far from resonance [Mehta et al. Phys. Rev. A 76, 022711 (2007)]. Further we develop a theory based on Breit-Wigner analysis that describes the loss feature for intermediate fields. Lastly we measure how the loss rate constant scales with transverse confinement and find that $K_3 \propto V_L^{-1}$, where $V_L$ is the lattice depth. Importantly, at our attainable transverse confinements and temperatures, we see a 74-fold suppression of the on-resonant three-body loss rate constant in quasi-1D compared to 3D. With significant further enhancement of the transverse confinement, this suppression may pave the way for realizing stable $p$-wave superfluids.