Hannover 2020 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 52: Cold Molecules II (joint session Q/MO)
Q 52.2: Talk
Thursday, March 12, 2020, 14:30–14:45, f442
Heteronuclear long-range Rydberg molecules — •Michael Peper1 and Johannes Deiglmayr2 — 1Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, ETH Zürich — 2Felix-Bloch Institut, University of Leipzig
The binding of long-range Rydberg molecules is based on the low-energy scattering of an Rydberg atom’s electron off a neutral ground-state atom within its orbit. Improving the quantitative understanding of this binding mechanism thus carries the potential to extract electron-atom-scattering potentials, important quantities to benchmark ab-initio atomic structure calculations [1], from photoassociation spectra of long-range Rydberg molecules. Current theoretical models are, however, challenged by the necessity to accurately model the scattering interaction while including all relevant spin couplings, such as the hyperfine interaction [2].
We propose to rigourously test the modelling of long-range Rydberg molecules by isoelectronic substitution, i.e., by systematically varying isotopic variant and chemical species of both Rydberg and ground-state atom. To this end we have completed the construction of a dual-species ultracold atom experiment, which allows for simultaneous trapping of ultracold cesium and potassium atoms. We will present our current progress towards performing photoassociation spectroscopy of homo- and heteronuclear long-range Rydberg molecules in this setup.
[1] H. Saßmannshausen, F. Merkt, and J. Deiglmayr, PRL 114, 133201 (2015); F. Engel et al., PRL 123, 073003 (2019); J.L. MacLennan, Y.-J. Chen, and G. Raithel, PRA 99, 033407 (2019) [2] C. Fey et al., New J. Phys. 17, 055010 (2015)