Directional effects due to quantum statistics in dissociation of elongated molecular condensates

Abstract

Ultracold clouds of dimeric molecules can dissociate into quantum mechanically correlated constituent atoms that are either both bosons or both fermions. We theoretically model the dissociation of two-dimensional anisotropic molecular condensates for which this difference manifests as complementary geometric structures of the dissociated atoms. Atomic bosons are preferentially emitted along the long axis of the molecular condensate, while atomic fermions are preferentially emitted along the short axis. This anisotropy potentially simplifies the measurement of correlations between the atoms through relative number squeezing.