First-order phase transition in atom-molecule quantum degenerate mixtures with coherent three-body recombination

Abstract:We map the phase diagram of a two-mode atom-molecule Bose-Einstein condensate with Fano-Feshbach and coherent three-body recombination (cTBR) terms. The standard second order phase transition observed as the molecular energy is tuned through the Feshbach resonance, is replaced by a first order transition when cTBR becomes prominent, due to a double-well structure in the free energy landscape. This transition is associated with atom-molecule entanglement, bistability, and molecular metastability. Our results establish cTBR as a powerful knob for quantum state engineering and control of reaction dynamics in ultracold chemistry.

Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

arXiv:2602.11637 [cond-mat.quant-gas]

(or arXiv:2602.11637v2 [cond-mat.quant-gas] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.11637 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

https://doi.org/10.1103/llw4-tbnt Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources

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