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Creation of an Ultracold Gas of Ground-State Dipolar Na23Rb87 Molecules

Mingyang Guo, Bing Zhu, Bo Lu, Xin Ye, Fudong Wang, Romain Vexiau, Nadia Bouloufa-Maafa, Goulven Quéméner, Olivier Dulieu, and Dajun Wang
Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 205303 – Published 19 May 2016

Abstract

We report the successful production of an ultracold sample of absolute ground-state Na23Rb87 molecules. Starting from weakly bound Feshbach molecules formed via magnetoassociation, the lowest rovibrational and hyperfine level of the electronic ground state is populated following a high-efficiency and high-resolution two-photon Raman process. The high-purity absolute ground-state samples have up to 8000 molecules and densities of over 1011cm3. By measuring the Stark shifts induced by external electric fields, we determined the permanent electric dipole moment of the absolute ground-state Na23Rb87 and demonstrated the capability of inducing an effective dipole moment over 1 D. Bimolecular reaction between ground-state Na23Rb87 molecules is endothermic, but we still observed a rather fast decay of the molecular sample. Our results pave the way toward investigation of ultracold molecular collisions in a fully controlled manner and possibly to quantum gases of ultracold bosonic molecules with strong dipolar interactions.

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  • Received 11 February 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.205303

© 2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Mingyang Guo1, Bing Zhu1, Bo Lu1, Xin Ye1, Fudong Wang1, Romain Vexiau2, Nadia Bouloufa-Maafa2, Goulven Quéméner2, Olivier Dulieu2, and Dajun Wang1,3,*

  • 1Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
  • 2Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, ENS Cachan, Université Paris-Saclay, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France
  • 3The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute, 518057, Shenzhen, China

  • *djwang@phy.cuhk.edu.hk

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Issue

Vol. 116, Iss. 20 — 20 May 2016

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