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Updated: Mar 18, 2026

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Multiple scattering dynamics of fermions at an isolated p-wave resonance
R Thomas1, K O Roberts1, E Tiesinga2
1Department of Physics, QSO-Centre for Quantum Science, and Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, University of Otago, 730 Cumberland Street, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand.
Abstract:
The wavefunction for indistinguishable fermions is anti-symmetric under particle exchange, which directly leads to the Pauli exclusion principle, and hence underlies the structure of atoms and the properties of almost all materials. In the dynamics of collisions between two indistinguishable fermions, this requirement strictly prohibits scattering into 90° angles. Here we experimentally investigate the collisions of ultracold clouds fermionic (40)K atoms by directly measuring scattering distributions. With increasing collision energy we identify the Wigner threshold for p-wave scattering with its tell-tale dumb-bell shape and no 90° yield. Above this threshold, effects of multiple scattering become manifest as deviations from the underlying binary p-wave shape, adding particles either isotropically or axially. A shape resonance for (40)K facilitates the separate observation of these two processes. The isotropically enhanced multiple scattering mode is a generic p-wave threshold phenomenon, whereas the axially enhanced mode should occur in any colliding particle system with an elastic scattering resonance.
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