Understanding Floquet Resonances in Ultracold Gas Scattering

Scattering by a short-range potential with time-periodic interaction strength is investigated with a Floquet-scattering theory. Sharp resonances occur, at which the s-wave scattering length can be tuned to large positive and negative values. We show that the shape of these resonances is described by a simple formula, and find that both resonance position and prefactor can be altered by the driving strength. Our approach allows to identify the physical origin of the scattering resonances as Floquet bound states with positive energies, which are dynamically created by the drive. This insight is valuable for a detailed analysis and uncovers a general resource for enhanced or reduced scattering in Floquet systems.