Atom-molecule Rabi oscillations in a Mott insulator

We observe large-amplitude Rabi oscillations between an atomic and a molecular state near a Feshbach resonance. The experiment uses 87Rb in an optical lattice and a Feshbach resonance near 414 G. The frequency and amplitude of the oscillations depend on magnetic field in a way that is well described by a two-level model. The observed density dependence of the oscillation frequency agrees with the theoretical expectation. We confirmed that the state produced after a half-cycle contains exactly one molecule at each lattice site. In addition, we show that for energies in a gap of the lattice band structure, the molecules cannot dissociate.