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European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC)

Long-range interactions in cold atomic gases

P. Pillet

Published Jan 18, 2006• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, properties of photoassociation in cold atomic samples allowing to manipulate atoms and molecules are discussed. Three aspects will be regarded: photoassociation spectroscopy, formation of cold molecules and two-colour photoassociation.
DOI
10.1109/eqec.2005.1567387

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Photoassociation is the process in which two colliding atoms absorb a photon to form an excited molecule. The development of laser-cooling techniques for producing gases at ultracold (<1mK)(<1\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{mK})(<1mK) temperatures allows photoassociation spectroscopy to be performed with very high spectral resolution. Of particular interest is the investigation of molecular states whose properties can be related, with high precision, to the properties of their constituent atoms with the ``complications'' of chemical binding accounted for by a few parameters. These include bound long-range or purely long-range vibrational states in which two atoms spend most or all of their time at large internuclear separations. Low-energy atomic scattering states also share this characteristic. Photoassociation techniques have made important contributions to the study of all of these. This review describes what is special about photoassociation spectroscopy at ultracold temperatures, how it is performed, and a sampling of results including the determination of scattering lengths, their control via optical Feshbach resonances, precision determinations of atomic lifetimes from molecular spectra, limits on photoassociation rates in a Bose-Einstein condensate, and briefly, production of cold molecules. Discussions are illustrated with examples on alkali-metal atoms as well as other species. Progress in the field is already past the point where this review can be exhaustive, but an introduction is provided on the capabilities of photoassociation spectroscopy and the techniques presently in use.
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When the atoms of a dimer remain most of the time very far apart, in so-called long-range molecular states, their mutual interaction is ruled by plain atomic properties. The high-resolution spectroscopic study of some molecular excited states populated by photoassociation of cold atoms (photoassociative spectroscopy) gives a good illustration of this property. It provides accurate determinations of atomic radiative lifetimes, which are known to be sensitive tests for atomic calculations. A number of such analyses have been performed up to now, for all stable alkali atoms and for some other atomic species (Ca, Sr, Yb). A systematic review of these determinations is attempted here, with special attention paid to accuracy issues.
Spectroscopic study of so-called long-range molecules, with average interatomic distances much larger than usual for chemical bonds, is conveniently performed by photoassociation (PA) of ultracold atoms. We present here a review of our results obtained by one and two-photon PA spectroscopy of the Cs 2 molecule, using as intermediate the 0 g − and 1 u potentials correlated to the (6 s +6 p 3/2 ) asymptote. These results have been interpreted using an asymptotic theoretical approach, which was specifically build for such long-range molecules.