Direct Photoassociative Formation of Ultracold KRb Molecules in the Lowest Vibrational Levels of the Ground State

Abstract

We report continuous direct photoassociative formation of ultracold KRb molecules in the lowest vibrational levels $(v"=0-10)$ of the electronic ground state $(X^1{\Sigma }^{+})$, starting from ${}^{39}$K and ${}^{85}$Rb atoms in a magneto-optical trap. The process exploits a newfound resonant coupling between the $2(1),v^{\prime }=165$ and $4(1),v^{\prime }=61$ levels, which exhibit an almost equal admixture of the uncoupled eigenstates. The production rate of the $X^1{\Sigma }^{+}$ ($v"$=0) level is estimated to be $5\times 10^3$ molecules/sec.

6 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Review A

References in corpus (5)

• Strongly correlated 2D quantum phases with cold polar molecules: controlling the shape of the interaction potential
• Optical pumping and vibrational cooling of molecules
• Controlling electronic spin relaxation of cold molecules with electric fields
• The coupling of the X${}^1{\Sigma }^{+}$ and a${}^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ states of KRb
• Enhancement of the formation of ultracold ${}^{85}$Rb${}_2$ molecules due to resonant coupling

Cited by in corpus (14)

• State-to-state control of ultracold molecular reactions
• Continuous Formation of Vibronic Ground State RbCs Molecules via Photoassociation
• Production of rovibronic ground state RbCs molecules via two-photon cascade decay
• Production of ultracold ground state LiRb molecules by photoassociation through a resonantly coupled state
• Photoassociation of Ultracold NaLi
• Two-photon photoassociation spectroscopy of an ultracold heteronuclear molecule
• Short-range Photoassociation of LiRb
• Dynamical process of optically trapped singlet ground state ${}^{85}$Rb${}^{133}$Cs molecules produced via short-range photoassociation
• Spectroscopy of the Double Minimum $3{}^3{\Pi }_{\Omega }$ Electronic State of ${}^{39}$K${}^{85}$Rb
• Short-range photoassociation from the inner wall of the lowest triplet potential of ${}^{85}$Rb${}_2$
• Microwave coherent control of ultracold ground-state molecules formed by short-range photoassociation
• Observation and Analysis of Resonant Coupling Between Near-Degenerate Levels of the 2 1Σg+ and 1 1 Πg States of Ultracold 85Rb2
• Long-range interactions between ultracold atoms and molecules
• Microwave-assisted coherent control of ultracold polar molecules with a ladder-type rotational states