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Factor of 1000 suppression of the depolarization rate in ultracold thulium collisions

I. A. Pyrkh1,2, A. E. Rudnev1,2, D. A. Kumpilov1,2, I. S. Cojocaru1,3, V. A. Khlebnikov1, P. A. Aksentsev1,4, A. M. Ibrahimov1,2, K. O. Frolov1,2, S. A. Kuzmin1,2 et al.

A. K. Zykova1, D. A. Pershin1, V. V. Tsyganok1, and A. V. Akimov1,3,*

  • *Contact author: a.akimov@rqc.ru
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013220 – Published 26 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/k1mv-1y2j

Abstract

Lanthanides are nowadays extensively used to investigate the properties of strongly correlated matter. Nevertheless, exploiting the Zeeman manifold of a lanthanide atom ground state is challenging due to the unavoidable presence of depolarization collisions. Here, we demonstrate that in the case of the thulium atom, it is possible to suppress this depolarization by a factor of 1000 with a carefully tuned magnetic field, thus opening the way for the efficient use of the Zeeman manifold in quantum simulations.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013220– Published 26 February, 2026
  • Received 27 May 2025
  • Revised 23 October 2025
  • Accepted 2 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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