Coherent control of ultracold molecule dynamics in a magneto-optical trap using chirped femtosecond laser pulses

Abstract

We have studied the effects of chirped femtosecond laser pulses on the formation of ultracold molecules in a Rb magneto-optical trap. We have found that application of chirped femtosecond pulses suppressed the formation of 85Rb-2 and 87Rb-2 lowest triplet state molecules in contrast to comparable non-chirped pulses, cw illumination, and background formation rates. Variation of the amount of chirp indicated that this suppression is coherent in nature, suggesting that coherent control is likely to be useful for manipulating the dynamics of ultracold quantum molecular gases.

4 pages, 4 figures v2 - slight corrections

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• Production of Ultracold Molecules with Chirped Nanosecond Pulses: Evidence for Coherent Effects
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• Efficient Formation of Ultracold Molecules with Chirped Nanosecond Pulses
• Perspectives for coherent optical formation of strontium molecules in their electronic ground state
• Probing Ultracold Collisional Dynamics with Frequency-Chirped Pulses
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• Influence of a tight isotropic harmonic trap on photoassociation in ultracold homonuclear alkali gases
• Correlation dynamics after short-pulse photoassociation
• Demonstrating coherent control in 85Rb2 using ultrafast laser pulses: a theoretical outline of two experiments