Optical Control of Exchange Interaction and Kondo Temperature in cold Atom Gas

The relevance of magnetic impurity problems in cold atom systems depends crucially on the nature of exchange interaction between itinerant fermionic atoms and a localized impurity atom. In particular, Kondo physics occurs only if the exchange interaction is anti-ferromagnetic, and strong enough to yield high enough Kondo temperature ($T_K/T_F \ge 0.1$). Focusing, as an example, on the experimentally accessible system of ultra-cold $^{173}$Yb atoms, it is shown that the sign and strength of an exchange interaction between an itinerant Yb($^{1}$S$_{0}$) atom and a trapped Yb($^{3}$P$_{0}$) atom can be optically controlled. Explicitly, as the light intensity increases (from zero), the exchange interaction changes from ferromagnetic to anti-ferromagnetic. When the light intensity is just below a singlet Feshbach resonance, the singlet scattering length $a_S$ is large and negative, and the Kondo temperature increases sharply.