Experimental verification of minima in excited long-range Rydberg states of Rb_2

Abstract

Recent theoretical studies with alkali atoms A${}^{\ast }$ excited to high Rydberg states predicted the existence of ultra long-range molecular bound states. Such excited dimers have large electric dipole moments which, in combination with their long radiative lifetimes, make them excellent candidates for manipulation in applications. This letter reports on experimental investigations of the self-broadening of Rb principal series lines, which revealed multiple satellites in the line wings. The positions of the satellites agree quantitatively with theoretically-predicted minima in the excited long-range Rydberg states of Rb${}_2$.

3 figures, 5 pages in two-column format

Cited by in corpus (9)

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• Rydberg excitation of Bose-Einstein condensates
• Production of trilobite Rydberg molecule dimers with thousand-Debye permanent electric dipole moments
• Synthetic dimension-induced conical intersections in Rydberg molecules
• Controlling Rydberg atom excitations in dense background gases
• Polyatomic trilobite Rydberg molecules in a dense random gas
• Dressed ion-pair states of an ultralong-range Rydberg molecule
• Absorption spectrum in the wings of the potassium second resonance doublet broadened by helium
• Novel binding mechanism for ultra-long range molecules