Towards photoassociation processes of ultracold rubidium trimers

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the prospects for photoassociation (PA) of Rb3, in particular at close range. We provide an overview of accessible states and possible transitions. The major focus is placed on the calculation of equilibrium structures, the survey of spin-orbit effects and the investigation of transition dipole moments. Furthermore we discuss Franck-Condon overlaps and special aspects of trimers including the (pseudo) Jahn-Teller effect and the resulting topology of adiabatic potentialenergy surfaces. With this we identify concrete and suitable PA transitions to potentially produce long-lived trimer bound states. Calculations are performed using the multireference configurationinteraction method together with a large-core effective core potential and a core-polarization potential with a large uncontracted even-tempered basis set.