Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 27: Ultra-Cold Atoms, Ions and BEC III (with Q)
A 27.3: Talk
Thursday, March 5, 2009, 15:00–15:15, VMP 6 HS-C
Trap assisted creation of giant molecules and Rydberg-mediated coherent charge transfer in a Penning trap — •Igor Lesanovsky1,2, Markus Müller1, and Peter Zoller1 — 1Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Innsbruck, and Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Innsbruck, Austria — 2School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottinhgham, UK
We study two ions confined in a Penning trap. We show that electronically highly excited states exist in which an electron is delocalized among the two ions forming a giant molecule of several micrometer size. At energies close to the top of the Coulomb barrier these molecular states can be regarded as superpositions of Rydberg states of individual ions. We illuminate the possibility to observe coherent charge transfer between the ions. Beyond a critical principal quantum number the electron can coherently tunnel through the Coulomb barrier to an adjacent doubly charged ion. The tunneling occurs on timescales on which the dynamics of the nuclei can be considered frozen and radiative decay can be neglected. The present study can be regarded as a first step towards the implementation of electronic Hubbard models in an ion trap setup.
[1] I. Lesanovsky, M. Müller and P. Zoller, arXiv:0809.3213 (2008)