Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme

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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik

MO 10: Kalte Moleküle 1

MO 10.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 10:30–11:00, VMP 6 HS-G

Ultracold Triplet Molecules in the Rovibrational Ground State — •Florian Lang¹, Klaus Winkler¹, Chrisoph Strauss¹, Rudolf Grimm^1,2, and Johannes Hecker Denschlag¹ — ¹Institut für Experimentalphysik und Zentrum für Quantenphysik, Universität Innsbruck — ²Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften

The successful production of quantum degenerate gases of weakly bound molecules has triggered a quest for quantum gases of tightly bound molecules. These can be used to investigate ultracold collisions and chemistry of molecules, to produce molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC), and to develop molecular quantum optics.

We report [1] the production of an ultracold gas of tightly bound Rb₂ triplet molecules in the rovibrational ground state, close to quantum degeneracy. This is achieved by optically transferring weakly bound Rb₂ molecules to the absolute lowest level of the ground triplet potential with a transfer efficiency of about 90%. The transfer takes place in a 3D optical lattice which traps a sizeable fraction of the tightly bound molecules with a lifetime exceeding 200 ms.

[1] F. Lang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 133005 (2008)