Photoassociation spectroscopy of cold atoms in a bright atomic beam

We report beam-loss photoassociation (PA) spectra of cold collisions within a slow, bright Na atom beam near the ${D}_{1}$ resonance line. The high collimation and brilliance of the atomic beam permits the detection of atomic fluorescence loss resulting from the photoassociation of cold sodium atoms. The results show that even at high PA laser intensities, where strong coupling of the colliding atoms to the optical field might obscure spectral features, vibrational and rotational progressions are surprisingly well resolved. We attribute the conservation of narrow spectral features to the properties of the saturated line shapes and to the unconventional collision energy distribution in one-dimensional (1D) single-beam collisions compared to 3D collisions in a gas cell.We report beam-loss photoassociation (PA) spectra of cold collisions within a slow, bright Na atom beam near the ${D}_{1}$ resonance line. The high collimation and brilliance of the atomic beam permits the detection of atomic fluorescence loss resulting from the photoassociation of cold sodium atoms. The results show that even at high PA laser intensities, where strong coupling of the colliding atoms to the optical field might obscure spectral features, vibrational and rotational progressions are surprisingly well resolved. We attribute the conservation of narrow spectral features to the properties of the saturated line shapes and to the unconventional collision energy distribution in one-dimensional (1D) single-beam collisions compared to 3D collisions in a gas cell.

Physical Review AApr 9, 20047 citations

We report beam-loss photoassociation (PA) spectra of cold collisions within a slow, bright Na atom beam near the

{D}_{1}

resonance line. The high collimation and brilliance of the atomic beam permits the detection of atomic fluorescence loss resulting from the photoassociation of cold sodium atoms. The results show that even at high PA laser intensities, where strong coupling of the colliding atoms to the optical field might obscure spectral features, vibrational and rotational progressions are surprisingly well resolved. We attribute the conservation of narrow spectral features to the properties of the saturated line shapes and to the unconventional collision energy distribution in one-dimensional (1D) single-beam collisions compared to 3D collisions in a gas cell.