No Arabic abstract
Ultracold photoassociation is typically performed at large internuclear separations, where the scattering wavefunction amplitude is large and Franck-Condon overlap is maximized. Recently, work by this group and others on alkali-metal diatomics has shown that photoassociation can efficiently form molecules at short internuclear distance in both homonuclear and heteronuclear dimers. We propose that this short-range photoassociation is due to excitation near the wavefunction amplitude maximum at the inner wall of the lowest triplet potential. We show that Franck-Condon factors from the highest-energy bound state can almost precisely reproduce Franck-Condon factors from a low-energy scattering state, and that both calculations match experimental data from the near-zero positive-energy scattering state with reasonable accuracy. We also show that the corresponding photoassociation from the inner wall of the ground-state singlet potential at much shorter internuclear distance is weaker and undetectable under our current experimental conditions. We predict from Franck-Condon factors that the strongest of these weaker short-range photoassociation transitions are one order of magnitude below our current sensitivity.
We investigate the dynamical process of optically trapped X$^{1}$$Sigma$$^{+}$ (v = 0) state $^{85}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules distributing in J = 1 and J = 3 rotational states. The considered molecules, formed from short-range photoassociation of mixed cold atoms, are subsequently confined in a crossed optical dipole trap. Based on a phenomenological rate equation, we provide a detailed study of the dynamics of $^{85}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules during the loading and holding processes. The inelastic collisions of $^{85}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules in the X$^{1}$$Sigma$$^{+}$ (v = 0, J = 1 and J = 3) states with ultracold $^{85}$Rb (or $^{133}$Cs) atoms are measured to be 1.0 (2)$times$10$^{-10}$ cm$^{3}$s$^{-1}$ (1.2 (3)$ times$ 10$^{-10}$ cm$^{3}$s$^{-1}$). Our work provides a simple and generic procedure for studying the dynamical process of trapped cold molecules in the singlet ground states.
We have observed short-range photoassociation of LiRb to the two lowest vibrational states of the $d,^3Pi$ potential. These $d,^3Pi$ molecules then spontaneously decay to vibrational levels of the $a^3,Sigma^+$ state with generation rates of $sim10^3$ molecules per second. This is the first observation of many of these $a,^3Sigma^+$ levels. We observe an alternation of the peak heights in the rotational photoassociation spectrum that suggests a $p$-wave shape resonance in the scattering state. Franck-Condon overlap calculations predict that photoassociation to higher vibrational levels of the $d,^3Pi$, in particular the sixth vibrational level, should populate the lowest vibrational level of the $a,^3Sigma^+$ state with a rate as high as $10^4$ molecules per second. These results encourage further work to explain our observed LiRb collisional physics using PECs. This work also motivates an experimental search for short-range photoassociation to other bound molecules, such as the $c,^3Sigma^+$ or $b,^3Pi$, as prospects for preparing ground-state molecules.
We have studied the effect of resonant electronic state coupling on the formation of ultracold ground-state $^{85}$Rb$_2$. Ultracold Rb$_2$ molecules are formed by photoassociation (PA) to a coupled pair of $0_u^+$ states, $0_u^+(P_{1/2})$ and $0_u^+(P_{3/2})$, in the region below the $5S+5P_{1/2}$ limit. Subsequent radiative decay produces high vibrational levels of the ground state, $X ^1Sigma_g^+$. The population distribution of these $X$ state vibrational levels is monitored by resonance-enhanced two-photon ionization through the $2 ^1Sigma_u^+$ state. We find that the populations of vibrational levels $v$=112$-$116 are far larger than can be accounted for by the Franck-Condon factors for $0_u^+(P_{1/2}) to X ^1Sigma_g^+$ transitions with the $0_u^+(P_{1/2})$ state treated as a single channel. Further, the ground-state molecule population exhibits oscillatory behavior as the PA laser is tuned through a succession of $0_u^+$ state vibrational levels. Both of these effects are explained by a new calculation of transition amplitudes that includes the resonant character of the spin-orbit coupling of the two $0_u^+$ states. The resulting enhancement of more deeply bound ground-state molecule formation will be useful for future experiments on ultracold molecules.
Ultracold metastable RbCs molecules are observed in a double species MOT through photoassociation near the Rb(5S$_{1/2}$)+Cs(6P$_{3/2}$) dissociation limit followed by radiative stabilization. The molecules are formed in their lowest triplet electronic state and are detected by resonant enhanced two-photon ionization through the previously unobserved $(3)^{3}Pi leftarrow a^{3}Sigma^{+}$ band. The large rotational structure of the observed photoassociation lines is assigned to the lowest vibrational levels of the $0^+,0^-$ excited states correlated to the Rb(5P$_{1/2}$)+Cs(6S$_{1/2}$) dissociation limit. This demonstrates the possibility to induce direct photoassociation in heteronuclear alkali-metal molecules at short internuclear distance, as pointed out in [J. Deiglmayr textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. textbf{101}, 13304 (2008)].
We present the results of an experimental and theoretical study of the electronically excited $tripletex$ state of $^{87}$Rb$_2$ molecules. The vibrational energies are measured for deeply bound states from the bottom up to $v=15$ using laser spectroscopy of ultracold Rb$_2$ Feshbach molecules. The spectrum of each vibrational state is dominated by a 47,GHz splitting into a $cog$ and $clg$ component caused mainly by a strong second order spin-orbit interaction. Our spectroscopy fully resolves the rotational, hyperfine, and Zeeman structure of the spectrum. We are able to describe to first order this structure using a simplified effective Hamiltonian.