Direct absorption imaging of ultracold polar molecules

Abstract

We demonstrate a scheme for direct absorption imaging of an ultracold ground-state polar molecular gas near quantum degeneracy. A challenge in imaging molecules is the lack of closed optical cycling transitions. Our technique relies on photon shot-noise limited absorption imaging on a strong bound-bound molecular transition. We present a systematic characterization of this imaging technique. Using this technique combined with time-of-flight (TOF) expansion, we demonstrate the capability to determine momentum and spatial distributions for the molecular gas. We anticipate that this imaging technique will be a powerful tool for studying molecular quantum gases.

4 pages, 4 figures

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• A High Phase-Space-Density Gas of Polar Molecules
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• Dipolar collisions of polar molecules in the quantum regime
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• Quantum Membrane Phases in Synthetic Lattices of Cold Molecules or Rydberg Atoms
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• Rydberg atom-enabled spectroscopy of polar molecules via Förster resonance energy transfer
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• Nondestructive dispersive imaging of rotationally excited ultracold molecules
• Thermodynamics of Dipolar Chain Systems
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• Quantum Zeno-based Detection and State Engineering of Ultracold Polar Molecules
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