A pump-probe study of the formation of rubidium molecules by ultrafast photoassociation of ultracold atoms

Abstract

An experimental pump-probe study of the photoassociative creation of translationally ultracold rubidium molecules is presented together with numerical simulations of the process. The formation of loosely bound excited-state dimers is observed as a first step towards a fully coherent pump-dump approach to the stabilization of Rb${}_2$ into its lowest ground vibrational states. The population that contributes to the pump-probe process is characterized and found to be distinct from a background population of pre-associated molecules.

Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. A (10 pages, 9 figures)

References in corpus (4)

• A High Phase-Space-Density Gas of Polar Molecules
• Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules
• Making ultracold molecules in a two color pump-dump photoassociation scheme using chirped pulses
• Demonstrating coherent control in 85Rb2 using ultrafast laser pulses: a theoretical outline of two experiments

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Demonstrating coherent control in 85Rb2 using ultrafast laser pulses: a theoretical outline of two experiments