Ultracold atoms are amongst the excellent test beds to study coherent quantum chemistry due to capabilities of controlling quantum states of the atoms with precision. In my talk, I will discuss how to control quantum pathway interferences in an ultracold molecule formation that is induced by a laser light, a process known as photoassociation (PA). We utilize a Rb-87 Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) apparatus where all-optically-trapped condensates are prepared in superposition of different spin states in the F=1 hyperfine level. By controlling the cumulative phase of the reactants taking different scattering channels, we interferometrically control the normalized PA rate with perfect visibility. To control the relative phase between the two quantum pathways (scattering channels of spin 0 pairs and spin +1/-1 pairs), we exploit the inherent quadratic energy shift at low magnetic bias field strengths and a free evolution time after a spin population transfer with an RF pulse. Our method also serves as a robust measurement technique to determine quadratic Zeeman energy splitting.

Short bio:
Dr. Hasan Esat Kondakci received his Ph.D. in 2015 from CREOL, the College of Optics & Photonics at the University of Central Florida, where he studied photon statistics in disordered lattices under the supervision of Prof. Bahaa Saleh (primary) and Prof. Ayman Abouraddy. Following his Ph.D., he worked on diffraction-free space-time light sheets and coherence phenomena in Prof. Ayman Abouraddy's lab at CREOL. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Yong Chen's lab at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University. His current research interests include spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates, photo-association of ultracold atoms, and deterministic state rotations in d-dimensional Hilbert space.