Description
Ultracold dipolar molecules are a promising system for interesting research in ultracold chemistry, novel interactions in quantum gases, precision measurements or quantum information.
Here we report on photoassociation spectroscpoy in an ultracold mixture of Yb and Rb near the $^1S_0 \rightarrow {}^3P_1$ intercombination line of Yb at 556 nm. While in previous work we have identified several one- and two-photon photoassociation transitions near the D1-line of Rb at 795 nm [1,2], photoassociation near the narrow intercombination line promises to open up new pathways for the production of YbRb-molecules in the absolute molecular ground state.
The experiments presented here, have been carried out in a completely new setup which is designed to spatially separate the production of ultracold atomic samples from the actual experimental studies [3]. In this setup we employ optical tweezers to transport individually cooled samples of ultracold Rb and Yb atoms from their separate production chambers to a dedicated common science chamber. In the science chamber the atoms can be further manipulated and trapped using various optical dipole trap geometries.
So far, we have experimentally observed one unbound-bound transition in a mixture of $^{170}$Yb and $^{87}$Rb near the intercombination line. We attribute the fact that no more transitions could be detected to the fact that the unbound-bound transition matrix elements are significantly smaller than expected. Using the observed excited RbYb* molecular level as an intermediate state we could also identify two two-photon transitions to vibrationally excited levels in the electronic ground state of the molecule using a dark-resonance technique. We plan to use the dark-resonances to identify deeply bound rovibrational levels in the electonically excited $1^2\Pi_{1/2}$ molecular state, which are suitable for an efficient transfer of the RbYb molecules into the absolute ground state.
[1] M. Borkowski et al., PRA 88, 052708 (2013)
[2] C. Bruni et al., PRA 94, 022503 (2016)
[3] C. Sillus et al. Rev. Sci. Inst. 92, 033204 (2021)
| Presenter name | Goerlitz, Axel |
|---|---|
| How will you attend ICAP-27? | I am planning on in-person attendance |
