Triplet-singlet conversion in ultracold Cs and production of ground state molecules
arXiv:1011.2563 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.83.022503
Abstract
We propose a process to convert ultracold metastable Cs molecules in their lowest triplet state into (singlet) ground state molecules in their lowest vibrational levels. Molecules are first pumped into an excited triplet state, and the triplet-singlet conversion is facilitated by a two-step spontaneous decay through the coupled states. Using spectroscopic data and accurate quantum chemistry calculations for Cs potential curves and transition dipole moments, we show that this process has a high rate and competes favorably with the single-photon decay back to the lowest triplet state. In addition, we demonstrate that this conversion process represents a loss channel for vibrational cooling of metastable triplet molecules, preventing an efficient optical pumping cycle down to low vibrational levels.
References in corpus (14)
- A High Phase-Space-Density Gas of Polar Molecules
- Cold and Ultracold Molecules: Science, Technology, and Applications
- Quo vadis, cold molecules? - Editorial review
- Quantum Gas of Deeply Bound Ground State Molecules
- Quantum gas of rovibronic ground-state molecules in an optical lattice
- Optical pumping and vibrational cooling of molecules
- Using Molecules to Measure Nuclear Spin-Dependent Parity Violation
- Radiative force from optical cycling on a diatomic molecule
- Magneto-Optical Trap for Polar Molecules
- Formation and interactions of cold and ultracold molecules: new challenges for interdisciplinary physics
- Resonant Coupling in the Heteronuclear Alkali Dimers for Direct Photoassociative Formation of X(0,0) Ultracold Molecules
- Efficient formation of deeply bound ultracold molecules probed by broadband detection
- Photoionization spectroscopy of excited states of cold cesium dimers
- Efficient formation of strongly bound ultracold cesium molecules by photoassociation with tunneling