Exoergic cold collisions in a mixture of K-Rb

Summary form only given. Several theoretical studies have recently been published, proposing a new series of experiments involving two different species of atoms trapped together: two species BEC and heteronuclear cold collisions. As in the case of single species, these experiments require that samples be obtained at high density. Therefore, an important step is the understanding and possible control of heteronuclear collisions. In this context, the study of trap loss in a binary mixture comes at the right time and is significant. We report on a measurement of cross species trap loss rate for a system composed of /sup 39/K and /sup 85/Rb, and we implement an adapted Gallagher-Pritchard model to attempt to explain the experimental observations.