Ab initio Yb$_2$ ground state potential revisited
Giorgio Visentin, Alexei A. Buchachenko, Paweł Tecmer
Abstract
The ground-state interaction potential of ytterbium dimer is investigated at eXact 2-component core-correlated CCSD(T) level of {\it ab initio} theory in the complete basis set limit with extensive augmentation by diffuse functions. For the basis set of double-$\zeta$ quality, the comparison is made with the four-component relativistic finite-nuclei CCSD(T) calculations to identify the contraction of the dimer bond length as the main unrecoverable deficiency of the scalar-relativistic approximation. Empirical constraint on the number of bound vibrational energy levels of the $^{174}$Yb$_2$ dimer is accounted for by employing the model semianalytical potential function [M. Borkowski et al. Phys. Rev. A {\bf 96}, 063405 (2017)] containing the scale and shift parameters. Using the best {\it ab initio} data as its short-range part, we estimated the equilibrium parameters of Yb$_2$ dimer as $R_e \in [4.45, 4.55]$ A and $D_e = 745 \pm 10$ cm$^{-1}$. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the model potential provides an accurate and flexible reference for future research in constraining short-range gravity-like forces by ultracold atomic spectroscopy.