Related papers: Protocol for Optically Pumping AlH$^+$ to a Pure Q…
Quantum-state preparation of molecular ions is a prerequisite for precision spectroscopy and controlled studies of cold ion-molecule dynamics. While such control has been extensively developed for diatomic ions and proposed for linear…
We demonstrate coherent control of both the rotational and hyperfine state of ultracold, chemically stable $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules with external microwave fields. We create a sample of ~2000 molecules in the lowest hyperfine level of…
We present detailed calculations at the basis of our recent proposal for simultaneous cooling the rotational, vibrational and external molecular degrees of freedom. In this method, the molecular rovibronic states are coupled by an intense…
We create a dark optical lattice structure using a blue detuned laser field coupling an atomic ground state of total angular momentum F simultaneously to two excited states with angular momenta F and F-1, or F and F+1. The atoms are trapped…
Within the Franck-Condon approximation, the single ionization of H$_2$ leaves H$_2^+$ in a coherent superposition of 19 nuclear vibrational states. We numerically design an optimal laser pulse train to transfer such a coherent nuclear wave…
We propose a highly efficient and fast method of translational cooling for high-angular-momentum atoms. Optical pumping and stimulated transitions, combined with magnetic forces, can be used to compress phase-space density, and the…
An experiment demonstrating the quantum simulation of a spin-lattice Hamiltonian is proposed. Dipolar interactions between nuclear spins in a solid state lattice can be modulated by rapid radio-frequency pulses. In this way, the effective…
A near-minimal instance of optical cooling is experimentally presented wherein the internal-state entropy of a single atom is reduced more than twofold by illuminating it with broadband, incoherent light. Since the rate of optical pumping…
We propose a broadband, femtosecond two-photon excitation scheme for efficient population transfer to the ultra-narrow linewidth $1s2s\ ^1S_0$ metastable state in helium. Using $120$ nm vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) femtosecond laser pulses, we…
We demonstrate laser cooling and magneto-optical trapping of europium. The atoms are optically pumped to a metastable state and then loaded from an atomic-beam source via conventional Zeeman slowing and magneto-optical trapping techniques…
Selectively exciting target molecules to high vibrational states is inefficient in the liquid phase, which restricts the use of IR pumping to catalyze ground-state chemical reactions. Here, we demonstrate that this inefficiency can…
We discuss the production of ultracold molecules in their electronic ground state by photoassociation employing electronically excited states with ion-pair character and strong spin-orbit interaction. A short photoassociation laser pulse…
Impulsive X-ray Raman excitations of Lithium, Neon, and Sodium are calculated using the Multiconfiguration Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock method. Using linearly polarized laser pulses without chirp, we determine the optimum central frequency,…
Tiny radiative losses below the 0.1% level can prove ruinous to the effective laser cooling of a molecule. In this paper the laser cooling of a hydride is studied with rovibronic detail using ab initio quantum chemistry in order to document…
We study population distributions and lasing actions of N_2^+ driven by femtosecond lasers with various wavelengths, and uncover an efficient ionic excitation mechanism induced by synchronized ionization and multiphoton resonance. Our…
Current experiments in liquid-state nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computing are limited by low initial polarization. To address this problem, we have investigated the use of optical pumping techniques to enhance the polarization of a…
We present an all-optical protocol for detecting population in a selected Rydberg state of alkali atoms. The detection scheme is based on the interaction of an ensemble of ultracold atoms with two laser pulses: one weak probe pulse which is…
A laser cooling method for trapped atoms is described which achieves ground state cooling by exploiting quantum interference in a driven Lambda-shaped arrangement of atomic levels. The scheme is technically simpler than existing methods of…
Starting from weakly bound Feshbach molecules, we demonstrate a two-photon pathway to the dipolar ground state of bi-alkali molecules that involves only singlet-to-singlet optical transitions. This pathway eliminates the search for a…
We perform one- and two-photon high resolution spectroscopy on ultracold samples of RbCs Feshbach molecules with the aim to identify a suitable route for efficient ground-state transfer in the quantum-gas regime to produce quantum gases of…