Short-range Photoassociation of LiRb

Abstract

We have observed short-range photoassociation of LiRb to the two lowest vibrational states of the $d{}^3\Pi$ potential. These $d{}^3\Pi$ molecules then spontaneously decay to vibrational levels of the $a^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ state with generation rates of $\sim 10^3$ molecules per second. This is the first observation of many of these $a{}^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ levels. We observe an alternation of the peak heights in the rotational photoassociation spectrum that suggests a $p$-wave shape resonance in the scattering state. Franck-Condon overlap calculations predict that photoassociation to higher vibrational levels of the $d{}^3\Pi$, in particular the sixth vibrational level, should populate the lowest vibrational level of the $a{}^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ state with a rate as high as $10^4$ molecules per second. These results encourage further work to explain our observed LiRb collisional physics using PECs. This work also motivates an experimental search for short-range photoassociation to other bound molecules, such as the $c{}^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ or $b{}^3\Pi$, as prospects for preparing ground-state molecules.

6 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Ultracold Molecule Assembly with Photonic Crystals