Suppression of three-body loss of $p$-wave fermions in quasi-1D

Recent interest in quantum computing has brought attention to the study of $p$-wave interactions, which are known to result in intriguing quantum phenomena such as $p + ip$ topological superfluids and Majorana fermions. However, the exploration of these phenomena in ultracold atomic gases has been impeded due to the severe atom losses from three-body recombination collisions near the $p$-wave Feshbach resonance in a 3D atomic gas. Previous work predicted\footnote{Lihong Zhou and Xiaoling Cui, Phys. Rev. A 96, 030701 (2017).} that such severe losses could be suppressed in quasi-1D. If proven true, this could open a possible avenue for realizing the Kitaev chain model. We characterized the three-body loss in quasi-1D using spin-polarized $^6$Li atoms in a two-dimensional optical lattice. We measured a reduction in the three-body loss coefficient as a function of lattice depth. The confinement induced shift and the shape of the resonance feature are consistent with coupled channels calculations for $p$-wave scattering in quasi-1D.