@article{12794,
  author = {A. Patscheider and L. Chomaz and G. Natale and D. Petter and M. Mark and S. Baier and B. Yang and R. Wang and John Bohn and F. Ferlaino},
  title = {Determination of the scattering length of erbium atoms},
  abstract = {An accurate knowledge of the scattering length is fundamental in ultracold quantum gas experiments and essential for the characterization of the system as well as for a meaningful comparison to theoretical models. Here, we perform a careful characterization of the s-wave scattering length as for the four highest-abundance isotopes of erbium, in the magnetic field range from 0 to 5 G. We report on cross-dimensional thermalization measurements and apply the Enskog equations of change to numerically simulate the thermalization process and to analytically extract an expression for the so-called number of collisions per rethermalization (NCPR) to obtain as from our experimental data. We benchmark the applied cross-dimensional thermalization technique with the experimentally more demanding lattice modulation spectroscopy and find good agreement for our parameter regime. Our experiments are compatible with a dependence of the NCPR with as, as theoretically expected in the case of strongly dipolar gases. Surprisingly, we experimentally observe a dependency of the NCPR on the density, which might arise due to deviations from an ideal harmonic trapping configuration. Finally, we apply a model for the dependency of the background scattering length with the isotope mass, allowing us to estimate the number of bound states of erbium.},
  year = {2022},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. A},
  volume = {105},
  pages = {063307},
  month = {2022-06},
  publisher = {American Physical Society},
  url = {https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.105.063307},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRevA.105.063307},
}