Kang-Kuen Ni

A High Phase-Space-Density Gas of Polar Molecules

A quantum gas of ultracold polar molecules, with long-range and anisotropic interactions, not only would enable explorations of a large class of many-body physics phenomena but also could be used for quantum information processing. We report on the creation of an ultracold dense gas of potassium-rubidium (40K87Rb) polar molecules. Using a single step of STIRAP (stimulated Raman adiabatic passage) with two-frequency laser irradiation, we coherently transfer extremely weakly bound KRb molecules to the rovibrational ground state of either the triplet or the singlet electronic ground molecular potential. The polar molecular gas has a peak density of 1012 per cubic centimeter and an expansion-determined translational temperature of 350 nanokelvin. The polar molecules have a permanent electric dipole moment, which we measure with Stark spectroscopy to be 0.052(2) Debye (1 Debye = 3.336 × 10–30 coulomb-meters) for the triplet rovibrational ground state and 0.566(17) Debye for the singlet rovibrational ground state.

Quantum-State Controlled Chemical Reactions of Ultracold Potassium-Rubidium Molecules

Colliding in the Cold Chemical reactions occur through molecular collisions, which, in turn, are governed by the distributions of energy in each colliding partner. What happens when molecules are cooled so that they no longer have sufficient energy to collide? Ospelkaus et al. (p. 853; see the Perspective by Hutson) explored this question by preparing a laser-cooled sample of potassium rubidium (KRb) diatomics with barely any residual energy in any form (translational, rotational, vibrational, or electronic). By monitoring heat release over time, evidence was gathered for exothermic atom exchange reactivity through quantum mechanical tunneling. As predicted by theory, these reactions were exquisitely sensitive to the molecular states, with rates changing by orders of magnitude on varying minor factors such as nuclear spin orientation. Reactions mediated by quantum mechanical tunneling are observed, even in a sample of molecules cooled almost to a standstill. How does a chemical reaction proceed at ultralow temperatures? Can simple quantum mechanical rules such as quantum statistics, single partial-wave scattering, and quantum threshold laws provide a clear understanding of the molecular reactivity under a vanishing collision energy? Starting with an optically trapped near–quantum-degenerate gas of polar 40K87Rb molecules prepared in their absolute ground state, we report experimental evidence for exothermic atom-exchange chemical reactions. When these fermionic molecules were prepared in a single quantum state at a temperature of a few hundred nanokelvin, we observed p-wave–dominated quantum threshold collisions arising from tunneling through an angular momentum barrier followed by a short-range chemical reaction with a probability near unity. When these molecules were prepared in two different internal states or when molecules and atoms were brought together, the reaction rates were enhanced by a factor of 10 to 100 as a result of s-wave scattering, which does not have a centrifugal barrier. The measured rates agree with predicted universal loss rates related to the two-body van der Waals length.

Dipolar collisions of polar molecules in the quantum regime

Ultracold polar molecules offer the possibility of exploring quantum gases with interparticle interactions that are strong, long-range and spatially anisotropic. This is in stark contrast to the much studied dilute gases of ultracold atoms, which have isotropic and extremely short-range (or ‘contact’) interactions. Furthermore, the large electric dipole moment of polar molecules can be tuned using an external electric field; this has a range of applications such as the control of ultracold chemical reactions, the design of a platform for quantum information processing and the realization of novel quantum many-body systems. Despite intense experimental efforts aimed at observing the influence of dipoles on ultracold molecules, only recently have sufficiently high densities been achieved. Here we report the experimental observation of dipolar collisions in an ultracold molecular gas prepared close to quantum degeneracy. For modest values of an applied electric field, we observe a pronounced increase in the loss rate of fermionic potassium–rubidium molecules due to ultracold chemical reactions. We find that the loss rate has a steep power-law dependence on the induced electric dipole moment, and we show that this dependence can be understood in a relatively simple model based on quantum threshold laws for the scattering of fermionic polar molecules. In addition, we directly observe the spatial anisotropy of the dipolar interaction through measurements of the thermodynamics of the dipolar gas. These results demonstrate how the long-range dipolar interaction can be used for electric-field control of chemical reaction rates in an ultracold gas of polar molecules. Furthermore, the large loss rates in an applied electric field suggest that creating a long-lived ensemble of ultracold polar molecules may require confinement in a two-dimensional trap geometry to suppress the influence of the attractive, ‘head-to-tail’, dipolar interactions.

Efficient state transfer in an ultracold dense gas of heteronuclear molecules

S. Ospelkaus, A. Pe’er, K.-K. Ni, J. J. Zirbel, B. Neyenhuis, S. Kotochigova, P. S. Julienne, J. Ye, and D. S. Jin JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0440, USA Physics Department, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122-6082, USA Joint Quantum Institute, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Maryland, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-8423, USA

Controlling the Hyperfine State of Rovibronic Ground-State Polar Molecules

We report the preparation of a rovibronic ground-state molecular quantum gas in a single hyperfine state and, in particular, the absolute lowest quantum state. This addresses the last internal degree of freedom remaining after the recent production of a near quantum degenerate gas of molecules in their rovibronic ground state, and provides a crucial step towards full control over molecular quantum gases. We demonstrate a scheme that is general for bialkali polar molecules and allows the preparation of molecules in a single hyperfine state or in an arbitrary coherent superposition of hyperfine states. The scheme relies on electric-dipole, two-photon microwave transitions through rotationally excited states and makes use of electric nuclear quadrupole interactions to transfer molecular population between different hyperfine states.

Collisional Stability of Fermionic Feshbach Molecules

Using a Feshbach resonance, we create ultracold fermionic molecules starting from a Bose-Fermi atom gas mixture. The resulting mixture of atoms and weakly bound molecules provides a rich system for studying few-body collisions because of the variety of atomic collision partners for molecules; either bosonic, fermionic, or distinguishable atoms. Inelastic loss of the molecules near the Feshbach resonance is dramatically affected by the quantum statistics of the colliding particles and the scattering length. In particular, we observe a molecule lifetime as long as 100 ms near the Feshbach resonance.

Heteronuclear molecules in an optical dipole trap

We report on the creation and characterization of heteronuclear KRb Feshbach molecules in an optical dipole trap. Starting from an ultracold gas mixture of K-40 and Rb-87 atoms, we create as many as 25,000 molecules at 300 nK by rf association. Optimizing the association process, we achieve a conversion efficiency of 25%. We measure the temperature dependence of the rf association process and find good agreement with a phenomenological model that has previously been applied to Feshbach molecule creation by slow magnetic-field sweeps. We also present a measurement of the binding energy of the heteronuclear molecules in the vicinity of the Feshbach resonance and provide evidence for Feshbach molecules as deeply bound as 26 MHz.

Precision Spectroscopy of Polarized Molecules in an Ion Trap

Toward a New Physics The search for physics beyond the Standard Model is carried out at accelerator facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider but also on a smaller scale in atomic and molecular physics experiments. One of the signatures of this “new physics” would be a nonvanishing electric dipole moment of the electron, but experiments designed to look for it need to distinguish between the signal and many potential artifacts. Loh et al. (p. 1220) introduce a method based on the spectroscopy of polarized molecular ions that avoids some of the sources of systematic error. A method to measure the electric dipole moment of the electron is demonstrated by using polarized trapped molecular ions. Polar molecules are desirable systems for quantum simulations and cold chemistry. Molecular ions are easily trapped, but a bias electric field applied to polarize them tends to accelerate them out of the trap. We present a general solution to this issue by rotating the bias field slowly enough for the molecular polarization axis to follow but rapidly enough for the ions to stay trapped. We demonstrate Ramsey spectroscopy between Stark-Zeeman sublevels in 180Hf19F+ with a coherence time of 100 milliseconds. Frequency shifts arising from well-controlled topological (Berry) phases are used to determine magnetic g factors. The rotating-bias-field technique may enable using trapped polar molecules for precision measurement and quantum information science, including the search for an electron electric dipole moment.

Enhancement of mechanical Q factors by optical trapping.

The quality factor of a mechanical resonator is an important figure of merit for various sensing applications and for observing quantum behavior. Here, we demonstrate a technique to push the quality factor of a micromechanical resonator beyond conventional material and fabrication limits by using an optical field to stiffen or trap a particular motional mode. Optical forces increase the oscillation frequency by storing most of the mechanical energy in a nearly lossless optical potential, thereby strongly diluting the effect of material dissipation. By placing a 130 nm thick SiO2 pendulum in an optical standing wave, we achieve an increase in the pendulum center-of-mass frequency from 6.2 to 145 kHz. The corresponding quality factor increases 50-fold from its intrinsic value to a final value of Q=5.8(1.1)×10(5), representing more than an order of magnitude improvement over the conventional limits of SiO2 for this geometry. Our technique may enable new opportunities for mechanical sensing and facilitate observations of quantum behavior in this class of mechanical systems.

Eliminating light shifts for single atom trapping

Microscopically controlled neutral atoms in optical tweezers and lattices have led to exciting advances in the study of quantum information and quantum many-body systems. The light shifts of atomic levels from the trapping potential in these systems can result in detrimental effects such as fluctuating dipole force heating, inhomogeneous detunings, and inhibition of laser cooling, which limits the atomic species that can be manipulated. In particular, these light shifts can be large enough to prevent loading into optical tweezers directly from a magneto-optical trap. We implement a general solution to these limitations by loading, as well as cooling and imaging the atoms with temporally alternating beams, and present an analysis of the role of heating and required cooling for single atom tweezer loading. Because this technique does not depend on any specific spectral properties, it should enable the optical tweezer platform to be extended to nearly any atomic or molecular species that can be laser cooled and optically trapped.