Photo-induced two-body loss of ultracold molecules
Atomic Physics
2019-09-25 v3 Quantum Gases
Abstract
The lifetime of nonreactive ultracold bialkali gases was conjectured to be limited by sticky collisions amplifying three-body loss. We show that the sticking times were previously overestimated and do not support this hypothesis. We find that electronic excitation of NaK+NaK collision complexes by the trapping laser leads to the experimentally observed two-body loss. We calculate the excitation rate with a quasiclassical, statistical model employing ab initio potentials and transition dipole moments. Using longer laser wavelengths or repulsive box potentials may suppress the losses.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1905.06846,
title = {Photo-induced two-body loss of ultracold molecules},
author = {Arthur Christianen and Martin W. Zwierlein and Gerrit C. Groenenboom and Tijs Karman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.06846},
year = {2019}
}