  The "avalanche mechanism" has been used to relate Efimov trimer states to
certain enhanced atom loss features observed in ultracold atom gas experiments.
These atom loss features are argued to be a signature of resonant atom-molecule
scattering that occurs when an Efimov trimer is degenerate with the
atom-molecule scattering threshold. However, observation of these atom loss
features has yet to be combined with the direct observation of atom-molecule
resonant scattering for any particular atomic species. In addition, recent
Monte-Carlo simulations were unable to reproduce a narrow loss feature. We
experimentally search for enhanced atom loss features near an established
scattering resonance between 40K87Rb Feshbach molecules and 87Rb atoms. Our
measurements of both the three-body recombination rate in a gas of 40K and 87Rb
atoms and the ratio of the number loss for the two species do not show any
broad loss feature and are therefore inconsistent with theoretical predictions
that use the avalanche mechanism.
