Alkali Atoms Attached to ${}^3$He Nanodroplets

Abstract

We have experimentally studied the electronic $3p->3s$ excitation of Na atoms attached to ${}^3$He droplets by means of laser-induced fluorescence as well as beam depletion spectroscopy. From the similarities of the spectra (width/shift of absorption lines) with these of Na on ${}^4$He droplets, we conclude that sodium atoms reside in a ``dimple'' on the droplet surface and that superfluid-related effects are negligible. The experimental results are supported by Density Functional calculations at zero temperature, which confirm the surface location of Na, K and Rb atoms on ${}^3$He droplets. In the case of Na, the calculated shift of the excitation spectra for the two isotopes is in good agreement with the experimental data.

arXiv comment6 pages, 3 figures, sent to JLTP

References in corpus (3)

• Structural and dynamical properties of superfluid helium: a density functional approach
• Density of Superfluid Helium Droplets
• Quantized vortices in mixed 3He-4He drops

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Photoionizaton of Pure and Doped Helium Nanodroplets
• The structure and energetics of ${}^3$He and ${}^4$He nanodroplets doped with alkaline earth atoms
• Imaging spectroscopy of rubidium atoms attached to helium nanodroplets
• Vibrational relaxation and dephasing of Rb2 attached to helium nanodroplets
• High-resolution spectroscopy of triplet states of Rb2 by femtosecond pump-probe photoionization of doped helium nanodroplets
• Neutral and ionic dopants in helium clusters: interaction forces for the $L{i}_2(a^3{\Sigma }_u^{+})-He$ and $L{i}_2^{+}(X^2{\Sigma }_g^{+})-He$