Formation of ultracold ion pairs through long-range Rydberg molecules

Abstract

We propose a new approach to excite ion-pair states of ultracold dimers. The central idea is a two-step process where first long-range Rydberg molecules are formed by photoassociation, which are then driven by stimulated emission towards the ion-pair state, a process bearing features of a photo-induced harpooning reaction. We assess the feasibility of this approach through a detailed experimental and theoretical study on a specific system, p-wave-scattering dominated long-range Rydberg molecules in caesium, and discuss potential applications for the study of strongly correlated plasmas consisting of oppositely charged particles of equal or similar mass.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in J. Phys. B: Special Issue on Interacting Rydberg atoms (2019)

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Heteronuclear long-range Rydberg molecules
• Dressed ion-pair states of an ultralong-range Rydberg molecule
• Electric field-induced wave-packet dynamics and geometrical rearrangement of trilobite Rydberg molecules
• An ultracold heavy Rydberg system formed from ultra-long-range molecules bound in a stairwell potential
• Green's function treatment of Rydberg molecules with spins
• Photodissociation of long-range Rydberg molecules
• Individual assembly of two-species Rydberg molecules using optical tweezers
• Photoionization of $nS$ and $nD$ Rydberg atoms of Rb and Cs from the near-infrared to the ultraviolet spectral region
• The role of Coulomb anti-blockade in the photoassociation of long-range Rydberg molecules
• Spin-orbit-dependent lifetimes of long-range Rydberg molecules