Abstract

Binary mixtures of ultracold atoms are of great interest in the research field of quantum optics and are studied by several groups aiming at different applications. Unlike most of the other experiments on mixtures we plan to rarify one of the two species down to atom numbers below 100, eventually even to the level of single particles. These few atoms will be immersed in a quantum degenerate sample of the other species to have the best possible control of the external degrees of freedom. We want to address the following questions: In which way are many-particle concepts reflected at the level of small samples of atoms? Can Bose condensates be used to control the properties of a small number of impurity atoms?

© 2007 IEEE