Related papers: Molecule-molecule and atom-molecule collisions wit…
We describe experiments demonstrating efficient transfer of molecules from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) into a conservative magnetic quadrupole trap. Our scheme begins with a blue-detuned optical molasses to cool SrF molecules to $\sim\!50$…
We demonstrate simultaneous deceleration and trapping of a cold atomic and molecular mixture. This is the first step towards studies of cold atom-molecule collisions at low temperatures as well as application of sympathetic cooling. Both…
Ultracold collisions of cold atoms or molecules make the bound states of the collision complex formed from the two colliding species accessible for control and manipulation of the cold species or the complex. Such resonances are best…
Ultracold polar molecules offer the possibility of exploring quantum gases with interparticle interactions that are strong, long-range, and spatially anisotropic. This is in stark contrast to the dilute gases of ultracold atoms, which have…
Optically trapped laser-cooled polar molecules hold promise for new science and technology in quantum information and quantum simulation. Large numerical aperture optical access and long trap lifetimes are needed for many studies, but these…
We report measurement of inelastic loss in dense and cold metastable ytterbium (Yb[$^3P_2$]). Use of an optical far-off-resonance trap enables us to trap atoms in all magnetic sublevels, removing multichannel collisional trap loss from the…
Atomic quantum gases in the strong-correlation regime offer unique possibilities to explore a variety of many-body quantum phenomena. Reaching this regime has usually required both strong elastic and weak inelastic interactions, as the…
We demonstrate efficient transfer of ultracold molecules into a deeply bound rovibrational level of the singlet ground state potential in the presence of an optical lattice. The overall molecule creation efficiency is 25%, and the transfer…
The direct photodissociation of trapped $^{85}$Rb$_2^+$ (rubidium) molecular ions by the cooling light for the $^{85}$Rb magneto-optical trap (MOT) is studied, both experimentally and theoretically. Vibrationally excited Rb$_{2}^{+}$ ions…
We show that controlled inelastic collisions can improve the single atom loading efficiency in the collisional blockade regime of optical microtraps. A collisional loss process where only one of the colliding atoms are lost, implemented…
We have realized a high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer combined with a magneto-optical trap. The spectrometer enables excellent optical access to the trapped atomic cloud using specifically devised acceleration and deflection…
Molecules have vibrational, rotational, spin-orbit and hyperfine degrees of freedom or quantum states, each of which responds in a unique fashion to external electromagnetic radiation. The control over superpositions of these quantum states…
We prepare mixtures of ultracold $^{39}$K atoms in various hyperfine spin states and $^{23}$Na$^{39}$K molecules in an optical dipole trap at a fixed magnetic field and study inelastic two-body atom-molecule collisions. We observe…
Weakly bound molecules have physical properties without atomic analogues, even as the bond length approaches dissociation. In particular, the internal symmetries of homonuclear diatomic molecules result in formation of two-body superradiant…
We consider how trapped molecules can be sympathetically cooled by ultracold atoms. As a prototypical system, we study LiH molecules co-trapped with ultracold Li atoms. We calculate the elastic and inelastic collision cross sections of LiH…
We produce ultracold dense trapped samples of 87Rb133Cs molecules in their rovibrational ground state, with full nuclear hyperfine state control, by stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) with efficiencies of 90%. We observe the onset…
Ultracold dipolar molecules hold great promise for the creation of novel quantum states of matter, but the realization of long-lived molecular bulk samples with strong dipole-dipole interactions has remained elusive. Here, we realize a…
We present an experimental and theoretical study of atom-molecule collisions in a mixture of cold, trapped atomic nitrogen and NH molecules at a temperature of $\sim 600$~mK. We measure a small N+NH trap loss rate coefficient of…
We associate Sr atom pairs on sites of a Mott insulator optically and coherently into weakly-bound ground-state molecules, achieving an efficiency above 80\%. This efficiency is 2.5 times higher than in our previous work [S. Stellmer, B.…
Molecular collisions can be studied at very low relative kinetic energies, in the milliKelvin range, by merging codirectional beams with much higher translational energies, extending even to the kiloKelvin range, provided that the beam…