Observation of pendular butterfly Rydberg molecules

Abstract

Obtaining full control over the internal and external quantum states of molecules is the central goal of ultracold chemistry and allows for the study of coherent molecular dynamics, collisions and tests of fundamental laws of physics. When the molecules additionally have a permanent electric dipole moment, the study of dipolar quantum gases and spin-systems with long-range interactions as well as applications in quantum information processing are possible. Rydberg molecules constitute a class of exotic molecules, which are bound by the interaction between the Rydberg electron and the ground state atom. They exhibit extreme bond lengths of hundreds of Bohr radii and giant permanent dipole moments in the kilo-Debye range. A special type with exceptional properties are the so-called butterfly molecules, whose electron density resembles the shape of a butterfly. Here, we report on the photoassociation of butterfly Rydberg molecules and their orientation in a weak electric field. Starting from a Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium atoms, we fully control the external degrees of freedom and spectroscopically resolve the rotational structure and the emerging pendular states in an external electric field. This not only allows us to extract the bond length, the dipole moment and the angular momentum of the molecule but also to deterministically create molecules with a tunable bond length and orientation. We anticipate direct applications in quantum chemistry, many-body quantum physics and quantum information processing.

arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures; Supplementary Material included

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Cited by in corpus (58)

• Ultracold Rydberg Molecules
• A Hamiltonian for the inclusion of spin effects in long-range Rydberg molecules
• Ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Trilobites, butterflies, and other exotic specimens of long-range Rydberg molecules
• Precision spectroscopy of negative-ion resonances in ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Rydberg molecules for ion-atom scattering in the ultracold regime
• Long-range Rydberg-atom-ion molecules of Rb and Cs
• Rydberg molecule-induced remote spin-flips
• Long-range atom-ion Rydberg molecule: A novel molecular binding mechanism
• Photo-association of trilobite Rydberg molecules via resonant spin-orbit coupling
• Experimental realization of a Rydberg optical Feshbach resonance in a quantum many-body system
• Observation of vibrational dynamics of orientated Rydberg-atom-ion molecules
• Formation of long-range Rydberg molecules in two-component ultracold gases
• Cs nDJ Rydberg-atom macrodimers formed by long-range multipole interaction
• Dressed ion-pair states of an ultralong-range Rydberg molecule
• Lifetimes of ultralong-range strontium Rydberg molecules in a dense BEC
• Electromagnetically induced transparency of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• On the formation of van der Waals complexes through three-body recombination
• Alignment of s-state Rydberg molecules in magnetic fields
• Spin-Interaction Effects for Ultralong-range Rydberg Molecules in a Magnetic Field
• Anisotropic blockade using pendular Rydberg butterfly molecules
• Classical threshold law for the formation of van der Waals molecules
• Observation of spin-orbit-dependent electron scattering using long-range Rydberg molecules
• Heteronuclear Rydberg molecules
• Generalized local frame transformation theory for ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Electric field-induced wave-packet dynamics and geometrical rearrangement of trilobite Rydberg molecules
• Diffusive-like Redistribution in State-changing Collisions between Rydberg Atoms and Ground State Atoms
• Formation of ultracold ion pairs through long-range Rydberg molecules
• Non-adiabatic decay of Rydberg-atom-ion molecules
• An ultracold heavy Rydberg system formed from ultra-long-range molecules bound in a stairwell potential
• Rydberg optical Feshbach resonances in cold gases
• Rydberg atom-ion collisions in cold environments
• Green's function treatment of Rydberg molecules with spins
• Non-adiabatic interaction effects in the spectra of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• The building principle of triatomic trilobite Rydberg molecules
• Photoassociation of rovibrational Rydberg molecules
• Electronic structure of ultralong-range Rydberg pentaatomic molecules with two polar diatomic molecules
• Hyperfine Structure of $n{P}_{1/2}$ Rydberg States in ${}^{85}$Rb
• Charged ultralong-range Rydberg trimers
• Microwave photo-association of fine-structure-induced Rydberg $(n+2)D_{5/2}n{F}_J$ macro-dimer molecules of cesium
• Creation and observation of a ghost trilobite chemical bond
• High-Resolution Spectroscopy of {R}ydberg Molecular States of ${}^{85}${R}b${}_2$ Near the $5s+7p$ Asymptote
• Breaking and trapping Cooper pairs by Rydberg-molecule spectroscopy in atomic Fermi superfluids
• Triatomic butterfly molecules
• Ultralong-range Rydberg molecules of Hg atoms
• On the existence of Rydberg nuclear molecules
• $In$ $situ$ observation of non-polar to strongly polar atom-ion collision dynamics
• Internal diffraction dynamics of trilobite molecules
• Tunable pairing with local spin-dependent Rydberg molecule potentials in an atomic Fermi superfluid
• Long-range Rydberg molecule Rb${}_2$: Two-electron \textit{R}-matrix calculations at intermediate internuclear distances
• Angular-Momentum Couplings in Ultra-Long-Range Giant Dipole Molecules
• Measurements of the hyperfine structure of $n{P}_J$ Rydberg states by microwave spectroscopy in Cs atoms
• Accurate density measurement of a cold Rydberg gas via non collisional two-body transitions
• Condensate losses and oscillations induced by Rydberg atoms
• Emergence and Control of Complex Behaviours in Driven Systems of Interacting Qubits with Dissipation
• A Green's function approach to giant-dipole systems
• On the electrostatic interactions involving long-range Rydberg molecules
• Spin-orbit-dependent lifetimes of long-range Rydberg molecules