Physics

We investigate the effects of static electric and magnetic fields on the differential ac Stark shifts for microwave transitions in ultracold bosonic 87 Rb 133 Cs molecules, for light of wavelength λ=1064 nm . Near this wavelength we observe unexpected two-photon transitions that may cause trap loss. We measure the ac Stark effect in external magnetic and electric fields, using microwave spectroscopy of the first rotational transition. We quantify the isotropic and anisotropic parts of the molecular polarizability at this wavelength. We demonstrate that a modest electric field can decouple the nuclear spins from the rotational angular momentum, greatly simplifying the ac Stark effect. We use this simplification to control the ac Stark shift using the polarization angle of the trapping laser.

We theoretically study the dynamics of a trapped ion that is immersed in an ultracold gas of weakly bound atomic dimers created by a Feshbach resonance. Using quasi-classical simulations, we find a crossover from dimer dissociation to molecular ion formation depending on the binding energy of the dimers. The location of the crossover strongly depends on the collision energy and the time-dependent fields of the Paul trap. Deeply bound dimers lead to fast molecular ion formation, with rates approaching the Langevin collision rate Γ ′ L ≈4.8× 10 −9 cm 3 s −1 . The kinetic energies of the created molecular ions have a median below 1 mK, such that they will stay confined in the ion trap. We conclude that interacting ions and Feshbach molecules may provide a novel approach towards the creation of ultracold molecular ions with applications in precision spectroscopy and quantum chemistry.

We demonstrate rotational cooling of the silicon monoxide cation via optical pumping by a spectrally filtered broadband laser. Compared with diatomic hydrides, SiO\+ is more challenging to cool because of its smaller rotational interval. However, the rotational level spacing and large dipole moment of SiO\+ allows direct manipulation by microwaves, and the absence of hyperfine structure in its dominant isotopologue greatly reduces demands for pure quantum state preparation. These features make 28 Si 16 O\+ a good candidate for future applications such as quantum information processing. Cooling to the ground rotational state is achieved on a 100 ms time scale and attains a population of 94(3)\%, with an equivalent temperature T=0.53(6) K. We also describe a novel spectral-filtering approach to cool into arbitrary rotational states and use it to demonstrate a narrow rotational population distribution ( N±1 ) around a selected state.

We present a precise measurement of the rubidium ionic core polarizability. The results can be useful for interpreting experiments such as parity violation or black-body radiation shifts in atomic clocks since the ionic core electrons contribute significantly to the total electrical polarizability of rubidium. We report a dipole polarizability α d = 9.116±0.009 a 3 0 and quadrupole polarizability α q = 38.4±0.6 a 5 0 derived from microwave and radio-frequency spectroscopy measurements of Rydberg states with large angular momentum. By using a relatively low principal quantum number ( 17≤n≤19 ) and high angular momentum ( 4≤ℓ≤6 ), systematic effects are reduced compared to previous experiments. We develop an empirical approach to account for non-adiabatic corrections to the polarizability model. The corrections have less than a 1\% effect on α d but almost double α q from its adiabatic value, bringing it into much better agreement with theoretical values.

We study the expansion of a cold, non-neutral ion plasma into the vacuum. The plasma is made from cold rubidium atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and is formed via ultraviolet photoionization. We employ time-delayed plasma extraction and imaging onto a position- and time-sensitive micro-channel plate detector to analyze the plasma. We report on the formation and persistence of plasma shock shells, pair correlations in the plasma, and external-field-induced plasma focusing effects. We also develop trajectory and fluid descriptions to model the data and to gain further insight. The simulations verify the formation of shock shells and correlations, and allow us to model time- and position-dependent density, temperature, and Coulomb coupling parameter, Γ(r,t) . This analysis both reaffirms the presence of shock shells and verifies that the experimental plasma is strongly coupled.

Previously reported works on the spectrum of Cs VII are critically studied using supplementary spectrograms recorded on a 3 m normal incidence vacuum spectrograph in the wavelength region 300-1240 A at the Antigonish laboratory (Canada). We confirmed the results of the earlier work of Gayasov and Joshi on this spectrum. Our analysis is supported by extended calculations with the pseudo-relativistic Hartree-Fock (HFR) method with superposition of configuration interactions implemented in Cowan's suite of codes. In this critical evaluation, in addition to the accurate energy levels of Cs VII with their uncertainties, observed and Ritz wavelengths with uncertainties and transition probabilities, the uniformly-scaled intensities of Cs VII lines are also presented. A total of 196 lines attributed to 197 transitions enabled us to optimize the energy values of 72 levels in Cs VII spectrum. Furthermore, Ritz wavelengths of 141 possibly observable lines are provided along with their transition probabilities.

We demonstrate a method to enhance the atom loading rate of a ytterbium (Yb) magneto-optic trap (MOT) operating on the 556 nm 1 S 0 → 3 P 1 intercombination transition (narrow linewidth Γ g =2π×182 kHz). Following traditional Zeeman slowing of an atomic beam near the 399 nm 1 S 0 → 1 P 1 transition (broad linewidth Γ p =2π×29 MHz), two laser beams in a crossed-beam geometry, frequency tuned near the same transition, provide additional slowing immediately prior to the MOT. Using this technique, we observe an improvement by a factor of 6 in the atom loading rate of a narrow-line Yb MOT. The relative simplicity and generality of this approach make it readily adoptable to other experiments involving narrow-line MOTs. We also present a numerical simulation of this two-stage slowing process which shows good agreement with the observed dependence on experimental parameters, and use it to assess potential improvements to the method.

We study the crystal-momentum-resolved contributions to the high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in band-gap materials, and identify the relevant initial crystal momenta for the first and higher plateaus of the HHG spectra. We do so by using a time-dependent density-functional theory model of one-dimensional linear chains. We introduce a self-consistent periodic treatment for the infinitely extended limit of the linear chain model, which provides a convenient way to simulate and discuss the HHG from a perfect crystal beyond the single-active-electron approximation. The multi-plateau spectral feature is elucidated by a semiclassical k-space trajectory analysis with multiple conduction bands taken into account. In the considered laser-interaction regime, the multiple plateaus beyond the first cutoff are found to stem mainly from electrons with initial crystal momenta away from the Gamma point (k = 0), while electrons with initial crystal momenta located around the Gamma point are responsible for the harmonics in the first plateau. We also show that similar findings can be obtained from calculations using a sufficiently large finite model, which proves to mimic the corresponding infinite periodic limit in terms of the band structures and the HHG spectra.

We utilize the dark state in a {\Lambda}-type three-level system to cool an ensemble of 85Rb atoms in an optical lattice [Morigi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4458 (2000)]. The common suppression of the carrier transition of atoms with different vibrational frequencies allows them to reach a subrecoil temperature of 100 nK after being released from the optical lattice. A nearly zero vibrational quantum number is determined from the time-of-flight measurements and adiabatic expansion process. The features of sideband cooling are examined in various parameter spaces. Our results show that dark-state sideband cooling is a simple and compelling method for preparing a large ensemble of atoms into their vibrational ground state of a harmonic potential and can be generalized to different species of atoms and molecules for studying ultracold physics that demands recoil temperature and below.

We study the spectral signatures and coherence properties of radiofrequency dressed hyperfine Zeeman sub-levels of 87Rb. Experimentally, we engineer combinations of static and RF magnetic fields to modify the response of the atomic spin states to environmental magnetic field noise. We demonstrate analytically and experimentally the existence of 'magic' dressing conditions where decoherence due to electromagnetic field noise is strongly suppressed. Building upon this result, we propose a bi-chromatic dressing configuration that reduces the global sensitivity of the atomic ground states to low-frequency noise, and enables the simultaneous protection of multiple transitions between the two ground hyperfine manifolds of atomic alkali species. Our methods produce protected transitions between any pair of hyperfine sub-levels at arbitrary (low) DC-magnetic fields.