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Optical Production of Stable Ultracold $^{88}$Sr$_2$ Molecules

Atomic Physics 2015-12-22 v2 Quantum Physics

Abstract

We have produced large samples of ultracold 88^{88}Sr2_2 molecules in the electronic ground state in an optical lattice. The molecules are bound by 0.05 cm1^{-1} and are stable for several milliseconds. The fast, all-optical method of molecule creation via intercombination line photoassociation relies on a near-unity Franck-Condon factor. The detection uses a weakly bound vibrational level corresponding to a very large dimer. This is the first of two steps needed to create Sr2_2 in the absolute ground quantum state. Lattice-trapped Sr2_2 is of interest to frequency metrology and ultracold chemistry.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1206.0417,
  title  = {Optical Production of Stable Ultracold $^{88}$Sr$_2$ Molecules},
  author = {G. Reinaudi and C. B. Osborn and M. McDonald and S. Kotochigova and T. Zelevinsky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.0417},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures