Continuous formation of vibronic ground state RbCs molecules via photoassociation

Abstract

We demonstrate the direct formation of vibronic ground state RbCs molecules by photoassociation of ultracold atoms followed by radiative stabilization. The photoassociation proceeds through deeply bound levels of the (2) 3 0 + state. From analysis of the relevant free-to-bound and bound-to-bound Franck-Condon factors, we have predicted and experimentally verified a set of photoassociation resonances that lead to efficient creation of molecules in the v = 0 vibrational level of the X 1 + electronic ground state. We also compare the observed and calculated laser intensity required to saturate the photoassociation rate. We discuss the prospects for using short-range photoassociation to create and accumulate samples of ultracold polar molecules in their rovibronic ground state.

Molecular beam study of thea3Σ+state of NaK up to the dissociation limit

“…The contributions for the R dependence are different for Na and K. Whether this difference is significant is not yet conclusive, because our derived values are notably correlated for both nuclei and also with the derived spin-orbit contribution in X(R) [Eq. (10)]. This latter function is mainly determined by the observed splitting for the (Gi,G2 ) subgroups.…”

“…Photoassociation connected w ith spontaneous decay is much sim pler to apply, but needs careful selection o f the excitation for an efficient decay to the desired quantum state. It was dem onstrated for LiCs [8], RbCs [9][10][11], N aCs [12], and KRb [13], For both procedures a fairly deep know ledge o f the electronic states Corresponding author: Tiemann@iqo.uni-hannover.de is advantageous, m ostly obtained by m olecular spectroscopy w ith guidance o f ab initio calculations.…”

Energy and radiative properties of the (3)Π1 and (5)ΣAlps1, Kruzins2, Nikolayeva3 et al. 2017Phys. Rev. A7171View full textAdd to dashboardCite

“…The value of the (3) 1 Π q-factor (≈ 2.6×10 −6 cm −1 ) appeared to be about 3-4 times larger than those estimated for the lower [35] (2) 1 Π and higher [22] (4) 1 Π lying states, namely: q (2) 1 Π ≈ 5.9 × 10 −7 and q (4) 1 Π ≈ 8.0 × 10 −7 cm −1 . This difference could be attributed to the dominant contribution of the single (4) 1 Σ + state into the sum (6). Furthermore, both relations (8) and (9) The present ab initio adiabatic PECs U ab i (R) and transition dipole moments d ab ij (R), see Section V, were used to estimate a radiative lifetime τ i of the upper (3) 1 Π and (5) 1 Σ + states along with their vibronic branching ratios R if into the lower-lying singlet state manifold.…”

Photoionization spectrum of 85RbCs molecules produced by short range photoassociation

“…2 shows the photoassociation spectrum of the short range molecule state, which was initially assigned to be v ¼ 8, ð5Þ0 þ of ð2Þ 3 Π state [26], but here replaced by ð4Þ0 À with other quantum numbers unchanged based on Ref. [27]. Note that our final spectra analysis is robust with respect to small changes of the initial vibrational quantum numbers.…”

“…Another elegant but much more complex coherent control techniques, two-photon stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) process, recently has been used to produce the rovibrational ground state 87 RbCs molecules starting from Feshbach resonance molecules [22,20]. Especially, short range photoassociated RbCs molecules in ð2Þ 3 Π 0 7 excited state attract many researchers' attention for its simplify and continuous formation scheme to singlet Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jqsrt ground state molecules directly from ultracold atoms [23][24][25][26][27][28], just like the cases of LiCs [29], NaCs [30], KRb [31]. It needs to be declared that ð2Þ 3 Π 0 7 state is a co-written label of ð2Þ 3 Π 0 þ and ð2Þ 3 Π 0 À states.…”