A trapped single ion inside a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Improved control of the motional and internal quantum states of ultracold neutral atoms and ions has opened intriguing possibilities for quantum simulation and quantum computation. Many-body effects have been explored with hundreds of thousands of quantum-degenerate neutral atoms, and coherent light-matter interfaces have been built. Systems of single or a few trapped ions have been used to demonstrate universal quantum computing algorithms and to search for variations of fundamental constants in precision atomic clocks. Until now, atomic quantum gases and single trapped ions have been treated separately in experiments. Here we investigate whether they can be advantageously combined into one hybrid system, by exploring the immersion of a single trapped ion into a Bose-Einstein condensate of neutral atoms. We demonstrate independent control over the two components of the hybrid system, study the fundamental interaction processes and observe sympathetic cooling of the single ion by the condensate. Our experiment calls for further research into the possibility of using this technique for the continuous cooling of quantum computers. We also anticipate that it will lead to explorations of entanglement in hybrid quantum systems and to fundamental studies of the decoherence of a single, locally controlled impurity particle coupled to a quantum environment.

Cold heteronuclear atom-ion collisions.

We study cold heteronuclear atom-ion collisions by immersing a trapped single ion into an ultracold atomic cloud. Using ultracold atoms as reaction targets, our measurement is sensitive to elastic collisions with extremely small energy transfer. The observed energy-dependent elastic atom-ion scattering rate deviates significantly from the prediction of Langevin but is in full agreement with the quantum mechanical cross section. Additionally, we characterize inelastic collisions leading to chemical reactions at the single particle level and measure the energy-dependent reaction rate constants. The reaction products are identified by in-trap mass spectrometry, revealing the branching ratio between radiative and nonradiative charge exchange processes.

Quantum transport through a Tonks-Girardeau gas.

We investigate the propagation of spin impurity atoms through a strongly interacting one-dimensional Bose gas. The initially well localized impurities are accelerated by a constant force, very much analogous to electrons subject to a bias voltage, and propagate as a one-dimensional impurity spin wave packet. We follow the motion of the impurities in situ and characterize the interaction induced dynamics. We observe a very complex nonequilibrium dynamics, including the emergence of large density fluctuations in the remaining Bose gas, and multiple scattering events leading to dissipation of the impurity's motion.