Ultra-long-range giant dipole molecules in crossed electric and magnetic fields

Zentrum für Optische Quantentechnologien - Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany, EU

^a mkurz@physnet.uni-hamburg.de

Received: 20 October 2011
Accepted: 5 January 2012

Abstract

We show the existence of ultra-long-range giant dipole molecules formed by a neutral alkali ground state atom that is bound to the decentered electronic wave function of a giant dipole atom. The adiabatic potential surfaces emerging from the interaction of the ground state atom with the giant dipole electron possess a rich topology depending on the degree of electronic excitation. Binding energies and the vibrational motion in the energetically lowest surfaces are analyzed by means of perturbation theory and exact diagonalization techniques. The resulting molecules are truly giant with internuclear distances up to several μm. Finally, we demonstrate the existence of intersection manifolds of excited electronic states that potentially lead to a vibrational decay of the ground state atom dynamics.