We demonstrate an approach for producing a high flux beam of
7Li
4He dimers by performing post-nozzle seeding of a lithium beam into a supersonic helium expansion. The molecular beam has a longitudinal temperature of 13(6) mK and a continuous flux on the order of
1011 dimers/s. Monte Carlo simulations of molecular formation based on ab-initio quantum scattering calculations are carried out and compared to the experimentally observed molecular flux. Extensions of this work could lead towards a more quantitative understanding of few-body collision processes of alkali and helium atoms.
We demonstrate an approach for producing a high-flux beam of
7Li4He dimers by performing postnozzle seeding of a lithium beam into a supersonic helium expansion. The molecular beam has a longitudinal temperature of 13(6) mK and a continuous flux on the order of
1011 dimers/s confined within a solid angle of 0.16 sr. Monte Carlo simulations of molecular formation based on
ab initio quantum scattering calculations are carried out and compared to the experimentally observed molecular flux. Extensions of this work could lead towards a more quantitative understanding of few-body collision processes of alkali and helium atoms.
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 observed as a first step toward a fully coherent pump-dump approach to the stabilization of
Rb2 into its lowest ground vibrational states. The population that contributes to the pump-probe process is characterized and found to be distinct from a background population of preassociated molecules.