Trilobites, butterflies, and other exotic specimens of long-range Rydberg molecules

Abstract

This Ph.D. tutorial discusses ultra-long-range Rydberg molecules, the exotic bound states of a Rydberg atom and one or more ground state atoms immersed in the Rydberg electron's wave function. This novel chemical bond is distinct from an ionic or covalent bond, and is accomplished by a very different mechanism: the Rydberg electron, elastically scattering off of the ground state atoms, exerts a weak attractive force sufficient to form the molecule in long-range oscillatory potential wells. In the last decade this topic has burgeoned into a vibrant and mature subfield of atomic and molecular physics following the rapidly developing capability of experiment to observe and manipulate these molecules. This tutorial focuses on three areas where this experimental progress has demanded more sophisticated theoretical descriptions: the structure of polyatomic molecules, the influence of electronic and nuclear spin, and the behavior of these molecules in external fields. The main results are a collection of potential energy curves and electronic wave functions which together describe the physics of Rydberg molecules. Additionally, to facilitate future progress in this field, this tutorial provides a general overview of the current state of experiment and theory.

Comments, criticism, suggestions very welcome. PhD Tutorial based on my Dissertation

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• Ultracold atom-electron interaction: from two to many-body physics
• Ultracold Rydberg Molecules
• Experimental characterization of singlet scattering channels in long-range Rydberg molecules
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• Theory of excitation of Rydberg polarons in an atomic quantum gas
• Trilobites, butterflies, and other exotic specimens of long-range Rydberg molecules
• Observation of Rydberg Blockade Induced by a Single Ion
• Observation of Rydberg-atom macrodimers: micrometer-sized diatomic molecules
• Rydberg molecules for ion-atom scattering in the ultracold regime
• Experimental verification of minima in excited long-range Rydberg states of Rb_2
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• Deeply bound (24$D_J$ + 5$S_{1/2}$) ${}^{87}$Rb and ${}^{85}$Rb molecules for eight spin couplings
• Formation of long-range Rydberg molecules in two-component ultracold gases
• Effective three-body interactions in Cs($6s$)-Cs($nd$) Rydberg trimers
• Laser and microwave spectroscopy of even-parity Rydberg states of neutral ytterbium and Multichannel Quantum Defect Theory analysis
• Controlling Rydberg atom excitations in dense background gases
• Hybridization of Rydberg electron orbitals by molecule formation
• Cs nDJ Rydberg-atom macrodimers formed by long-range multipole interaction
• Theory of long range interactions for Rydberg states attached to hyperfine split cores
• Measurement of Holmium Rydberg series through MOT depletion spectroscopy
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• Electromagnetically induced transparency of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Lifetimes of ultralong-range strontium Rydberg molecules in a dense BEC
• Rotational hybridization, and control of alignment and orientation in triatomic ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Spin-Interaction Effects for Ultralong-range Rydberg Molecules in a Magnetic Field
• Ultralong-range Rydberg molecules in combined electric and magnetic fields
• Alignment of s-state Rydberg molecules in magnetic fields
• Measurement of the strontium triplet Rydberg series by depletion spectroscopy of ultracold atoms
• Effective spin-spin interactions in bilayers of Rydberg atoms and polar molecules
• Photoassociation of rovibrational Rydberg molecules
• Electronic structure of ultralong-range Rydberg pentaatomic molecules with two polar diatomic molecules
• Use of Lambert's Theorem for the n-Dimensional Coulomb Problem
• Creation and observation of a ghost trilobite chemical bond
• $R$-matrix calculations of electron collisions with lithium atom at low energies
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Cited by in corpus (28)

• Trilobites, butterflies, and other exotic specimens of long-range Rydberg molecules
• Long-range atom-ion Rydberg molecule: A novel molecular binding mechanism
• Synthetic dimension-induced conical intersections in Rydberg molecules
• Dressed ion-pair states of an ultralong-range Rydberg molecule
• Vibronic interactions in trilobite and butterfly Rydberg molecules
• Observation of spin-orbit-dependent electron scattering using long-range Rydberg molecules
• Generalized local frame transformation theory for ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Formation of ultracold ion pairs through long-range Rydberg molecules
• Rydberg Composites
• Green's function treatment of Rydberg molecules with spins
• Non-adiabatic interaction effects in the spectra of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Tayloring Bose-Einstein condensate environments for a Rydberg impurity
• Loss rates for high-$n$, $49\lesssim n\lesssim 150$, 5sns(${}^3$S${}_1$) Rydberg atoms excited in an ${}^{84}$Sr Bose-Einstein condensate
• Individual assembly of two-species Rydberg molecules using optical tweezers
• Kato's theorem and ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Charged ultralong-range Rydberg trimers
• Topological edge states in a Rydberg composite
• In situ observation of chemistry in Rydberg molecules within a coherent solvent
• Determination of Quantum Defects and Core Polarizability of Atomic Cesium via Terahertz and Radio-Frequency Spectroscopy in Thermal Vapor
• Triatomic butterfly 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
• Ring Rydberg Composites
• Electron cloud design for Rydberg multi-qubit gates
• Microscopic Rydberg electron orbit manipulation with optical tweezers
• Probing Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer pairing and quasiparticle formation in ultracold gases by Rydberg atom spectroscopy
• On the electrostatic interactions involving long-range Rydberg molecules
• Spin-orbit-dependent lifetimes of long-range Rydberg molecules