Related papers: Theoretical model for ultracold molecule formation…
We report on coherent control of excitation processes of translationally ultracold rubidium dimers in a magneto-optical trap by using shaped femtosecond laser pulses. Evolution strategies are applied in a feedback loop in order to optimize…
Photoassociation of ultracold atoms is shown to lead to alignment of the product molecules along the excitation laser polarization axis. We theoretically investigate pulsed photoassociation of $^{87}Rb$ atoms into a specific weakly-bound…
Calculations relating to two experiments that demonstrate coherent control of preformed rubidium-85 molecules in a magneto-optical trap using ultrafast laser pulses are presented. In the first experiment, it is shown that pre-associated…
We have studied the effects of chirped femtosecond laser pulses on the formation of ultracold molecules in a Rb magneto-optical trap. We have found that application of chirped femtosecond pulses suppressed the formation of 85Rb-2 and 87Rb-2…
We propose an improved photoassociation scheme to produce ultracold molecules in their vibronic ground state for the generic case where non-adiabatic effects facilitating transfer to deeply bound levels are absent. Formation of molecules is…
In recent experiments on ultracold matter, molecules have been produced from ultracold atoms by photoassociation, Feshbach resonances, and three-body recombination. The created molecules are translationally cold, but vibrationally highly…
This theoretical paper investigates the formation of ground state molecules from ultracold cesium atoms in a two-color scheme. Following previous work on photoassociation with chirped picosecond pulses [Luc-Koenig et al., Phys. Rev. A {\bf…
We consider the formation of cold ground-state polar molecules in a low vibrational level by laser fields. Starting from a pair of cold colliding atoms of dissimilar species, we propose a strategy consisting of three steps. In the first…
An experimental pump-probe study of the photoassociative creation of translationally ultracold rubidium molecules is presented together with numerical simulations of the process. The formation of loosely bound excited-state dimers is…
Chemical reactions can be surprisingly efficient at ultracold temperatures ( < 1mK) due to the wave nature of atoms and molecules. The study of reactions in the ultracold regime is a new research frontier enabled by cooling and trapping…
The paper investigates cold molecules formation in the photoassociation of two cold atoms by a strong laser pulse applied at short interatomic distances, which lead to a molecular dynamics taking place in the light-induced (adiabatic)…
We describe experiments and associated quantum simulations involving the production of ultracold $^{87}$Rb$_{2}$ molecules with nanosecond pulses of frequency-chirped light. With appropriate chirp parameters, the formation is dominated by…
Optical Feshbach resonances [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 193001 (2005)] and pump-dump photoassociation with short laser pulses [Phys. Rev. A 73, 033408 (2006)] have been proposed as means to coherently form stable ultracold alkali dimer molecules.…
We have studied the formation of ultracold RbSr molecules with laser pulses. After discussing the advantages of the Mott insulator phase for the control with pulses, we present two classes of strategies. The first class involves two…
Photoassociation of ultracold rubidium atoms with femtosecond laser pulses is studied theoretically. The spectrum of the pulses is cut off in order to suppress pulse amplitude at and close to the atomic resonance frequency. This leads to…
We demonstrate that judicious shaping of a nanosecond-time-scale frequency chirp can dramatically enhance the formation rate of ultracold $^{87}$Rb$_{2}$ molecules. Starting with ultracold $^{87}$Rb atoms, we apply pulses of…
Laser cooling of molecules employing broadband optical pumping involves a timescale separation between laser excitation and spontaneous emission. Here, we optimize the optical pumping step using shaped laser pulses. We derive two…
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…
We propose a mechanism to produce a superposition of atomic and molecular states by a train of ultrashort laser pulses combined with weak control fields. By adjusting the repetition rate of the pump pulses and the intensity of the coupling…
We experimentally investigate various processes present in the photoassociative interaction of an ultracold atomic sample with shaped femtosecond laser pulses. We demonstrate the photoassociation of pairs of rubidium atoms into…