Driving the formation of the RbCs dimer by a laser pulse: A nonlinear-dynamics approach

Abstract

We study the formation of the RbCs molecule by an intense laser pulse using nonlinear dynamics.Under the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, the system is modeled by a two degree of freedom rovibrational Hamiltonian, which includes the ground electronic potential energy curve of the diatomic molecule and the interaction of the molecular polarizability with the electric field of the laser. As the laser intensity increases, we observe that the formation probability first increases and then decreases after reaching a maximum. We show that the analysis can be simplified to the investigation of the long-range interaction between the two atoms. We conclude that the formation is due to a very small change in the radial momentum of the dimer induced by the laser pulse.From this observation, we build a reduced one dimensional model which allows us to derive an approximate expression of the formation probability as a function of the laser intensity.

Nonlinear dynamics of molecular superrotors

“…This sine ramp-up envelope has been previously used in Refs. [32,34], and it is used to mimic experimental laser pulses with a rather smooth ramp-up and ramp-down [35]. With the electric field (1) we irradiate a diatomic molecule.…”

“…More precisely, following a similar scheme to the one we used in Refs. [32,33], we study the classical dynamics of a diatomic molecule in an optical centrifuge. As a model example, we take the Cl 2 molecule which has been used in Refs.…”

Formation of RbCs dimers using an elliptically polarized laser pulse

“…Following a similar scheme to the one we used recently in Ref. [32], in this paper we use classical dynamics to study the formation of cold RbCs dimers driven by a strong elliptically polarized laser pulse. In this way, the creation yield of RbCs molecules is explored as a function of the laser parameters, namely the ellipticity and the strength electric field.…”