Direct observation of coherent inter-orbital spin-exchange dynamics

Abstract

We report on the first direct observation of fast spin-exchange coherent oscillations between different long-lived electronic orbitals of ultracold $^{173}$Yb fermions. We measure, in a model-independent way, the strength of the exchange interaction driving this coherent process. This observation allows us to retrieve important information on the inter-orbital collisional properties of $^{173}$Yb atoms and paves the way to novel quantum simulations of paradigmatic models of two-orbital quantum magnetism.

In this version of the preprint we have swapped the assignment of the eg+ and eg- states to the spectroscopic signals, thus correcting a wrong attribution in the previous version. As a consequence, the scattering lengths of the two states have been inverted. Hovewer, the main results of the paper remain unchanged. 5 pages (paper) + 3 pages (Supplemental Material)