A pathway to ultracold bosonic ${}^{23}{\text{Na}}^{39}\text{K}$ ground state molecules

Abstract

We spectroscopically investigate a pathway for the conversion of ${}^{23}{\text{Na}}^{39}\text{K}$ Feshbach molecules into rovibronic ground state molecules via STImulated Raman Adiabatic Passage (STIRAP). Using photoassociation spectroscopy from the diatomic scattering threshold in the $a^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ potential, we locate the resonantly mixed electronically excited intermediate states $|B^1\Pi ,v=8⟩$ and $|c^3{\Sigma }^{+},v=30⟩$ which, due to their singlet-triplet admixture, serve as an ideal bridge between predominantly $a^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ Feshbach molecules and pure $X^1{\Sigma }^{+}$ ground state molecules. We investigate their hyperfine structure and present a simple model to determine the singlet-triplet coupling of these states. Using Autler-Townes spectroscopy, we locate the rovibronic ground state of the ${}^{23}{\text{Na}}^{39}\text{K}$ molecule ($|X^1{\Sigma }^{+},v=0,N=0⟩$) and the second rotationally excited state $N=2$ to unambiguously identify the ground state. We also extract the effective transition dipole moment from the excited to the ground state. Our investigations result in a fully characterized scheme for the creation of ultracold bosonic ${}^{23}{\text{Na}}^{39}\text{K}$ ground state molecules.

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Efficient conversion of closed-channel dominated Feshbach molecules of ${}^{23}$Na${}^{40}$K to their absolute ground state