Interaction of atomic quantum gases with a single carbon nanotube

¹ Physik Department, Technische Universität München - D-85747 Garching, Germany, EU
² Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Regensburg - D-93040 Regensburg, Germany, EU
³ Faculty of Physics, Universität Duisburg- Essen - D-47045 Duisburg, Germany, EU
⁴ Departamento de Física, Universidad del Valle - Cali, Colombia

^(a) finkm@ph.tum.de

Received: 16 January 2013
Accepted: 25 April 2013

Abstract

We study inelastic processes in the hybrid quantum system constituted by a carbon nanotube (CNT) in contact with an ultracold quantum gas, such as a cloud of thermal atoms or a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). We present a parameter-free ab initio approach for the loss rate based on the underlying scattering process, considering the two-dimensional character of the system as well as the exact Casimir-Polder potential. The predicted loss rates are in perfect agreement with recent experimental results, obtained both for a thermal cloud of rubidium atoms and for a BEC. For the trap loss of a thermal cloud, we find that retardation effects become important and contribute significantly, which emphasises the crucial role of the exact interaction potential.