New parametric emissions in diatomic sodium molecules

Z. G. Wang, Hennrik Schmidt, B. Wellegehausen

Kevin Mcdill Jones

N. W. Carlson

Arjen Amelink, P. van der Straten

Using ultra-cold atoms a new technique of photoassociation spectroscopy has been developed. The technique has an unprecedented resolution and can be used to obtain high-resolution data on singly and doubly excited states of diatomic molecules. We describe the principle of the technique and show results for one specific case, namely the Na 2 molecule.

Jörn Manz, Jhon Fredy Pérez-Torres, Yonggang Yang

When molecules move, their nuclei flow. The corresponding quantum observable, i.e., the nuclear flux density, was introduced by Schrödinger in 1926, but until now, it has not been measured. Here the first experimental results are deduced from high-resolution pump-probe measurements of the time-dependent nuclear densities in a vibrating diatomic molecule or molecular ion. The nuclear densities are converted to flux densities by means of the continuity equation. The flux densities are much more sensitive to time-dependent quantum effects than the densities. Applications to the sodium molecule and the deuterium molecular ion unravel four new effects; e.g., at the turns from bond stretch to compression, the flux of the nuclei exhibits multiple changes of directions, from small to large bond lengths, a phenomenon that we call the "quantum accordion."

Stoyan Dinev, Ivan Georgiev Koprinkov, Ivan L. Stefanov