Rostock 2019 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 32: Ultra-cold plasmas and Rydberg systems (joint session A/Q)
Q 32.8: Talk
Wednesday, March 13, 2019, 15:45–16:00, S HS 1 Physik
Quantum gas microscopy of Rydberg macrodimers — •Simon Hollerith1, Jun Rui1, Johannes Zeiher3, Antonio Rubio-Abadal1, Valentin Walther2, Thomas Pohl2, Dan M. Stamper-Kurn3, Immanuel Bloch1,4, and Christian Groß1 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, 85748 Garching, Germany — 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, DK 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark — 3Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA — 4Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80799 München, Germany
Rydberg macrodimers - molecules consisting of two bound highly-excited Rydberg atoms - provide enormous bond lengths even resolvable with optical wavelengths. Here we report on the microscopic observation, characterization and control over the formation of such Rydberg macrodimers in a gas of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. The huge size of about 0.7 micrometers matches the diagonal distance of two atoms in the lattice. Starting from a two-dimensional array of one atom per site, the discrete spatial density provided by atoms in their motional ground state combined with a narrow-linewidth ultraviolet laser enables the resolved two-photon photoassociation of more than 50 theoretically predicted vibrational states. Using our spatially resolved detection, we observe the macrodimers by correlated atom loss and demonstrate control of the molecular alignment by the vibrational state and the polarization of the excitation light. Our results allow for a detailed test of Rydberg interactions and establish quantum gas microscopy as a powerful tool for quantum chemistry.