Issue |
EPL
Volume 96, Number 3, November 2011
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 33001 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/96/33001 | |
Published online | 14 October 2011 |
Photoassociative creation of ultracold heteronuclear 6Li40K* molecules
1
Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie-Curie 24 rue Lhomond, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France, EU
2
Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud 11 - F-91405 Orsay, France, EU
Received:
2
August
2011
Accepted:
7
September
2011
We investigate the formation of weakly bound, electronically excited, heteronuclear 6Li40K* molecules by single-photon photoassociation in a magneto-optical trap. We performed trap loss spectroscopy within a range of 325 GHz below the Li(2S1/2)+K(4P3/2) and Li(2S1/2)+K(4P1/2) asymptotic states and observed more than 60 resonances, which we identify as rovibrational levels of 7 of 8 attractive long-range molecular potentials. The long-range dispersion coefficients and rotational constants are derived. We find large molecule formation rates of up to ∼3.5×107s− 1, which are shown to be comparable to those for homonuclear 40K2*. Using a theoretical model we infer decay rates to the deeply bound electronic ground-state vibrational level X1Σ+(v′ =3) of ∼5×104 s−1. Our results pave the way for the production of ultracold bosonic ground-state 6Li40K molecules which exhibit a large intrinsic permanent electric dipole moment.
PACS: 33.20.-t – Molecular spectra / 37.10.Mn – Slowing and cooling of molecules / 34.20.Cf – Interatomic potentials and forces
© EPLA, 2011
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.