Quantum Scattering of Distinguishable Bosons using an Ultracold Atom Collider

Abstract

We describe a new implementation of magnetic collider for investigating cold collisions between ultracold atomic clouds in different spin states, and we use this to investigate scattering involving both even and odd order partial waves. Our method relies on the axial assymetry of a double-well magnetic trap to selectively prepare the spin state in each cloud. We measure the energy dependence of s, p and d partial wave phase shifts in collisions up to 300 microKelvin between ^{87}Rb atoms in the 5S_{1/2}, F=1, m_F=-1 and 5S_{1/2}, F=2, m_F=1 states.