Purely long-range polar molecules composed of identical lanthanide atoms

Abstract

Doubly polar molecules, possessing an electric dipole moment and a magnetic dipole moment, can strongly couple to both an external electric field and a magnetic field, providing unique opportunities to exert full control of the system quantum state at ultracold temperatures. We propose a method for creating a purely long-range doubly polar homonuclear molecule from a pair of strongly magnetic lanthanide atoms, one atom being in its ground level and the other in a superposition of quasi-degenerate opposite-parity excited levels [Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 063201 (2018)]. The electric dipole moment is induced by coupling the excited levels with an external electric field. We derive the general expression of the long-range, Stark, and Zeeman interaction energies in the properly symmetrized and fully-coupled basis describing the diatomic complex. Taking the example of holmium, our calculations predict shallow long-range wells in the potential energy curves that may support vibrational levels accessible by direct photoassociation from pairs of ground-level atoms.arXiv:1907.03853v1 [physics.atom-ph]

Magnetic Moments of Lanthanide van der Waals Dimers

“…One presumes the appearance and pattern of chaos may take different forms when states of different angular momentum J are coupled and the molecules become overall more chaotic [3,12]. In this context it is worth noting that even more exotic states of lanthanide dimers have been proposed, which possess large electric dipole moments as well as large magnetic dipole moments, providing additional opportunities for introducing and probing chaos [24,25].…”

Optical Shielding of Destructive Chemical Reactions between Ultracold Ground-State NaRb Molecules

“…This spin-forbidden transition facilitated by the spin-orbit coupling between the b 3 Π 0 and the A 1 Σ þ 0 excited states ensures that the spontaneous emission does not hinder the OS efficiency. We calculated the bimolecular long-range potential-energy curves (PECs) from our previous developments [42][43][44][45] safely neglecting the hyperfine structure of the rotational levels (see Supplemental Material [46]). We found that a PEC correlated to the ðj X ¼ 0Þ þ ðj b ¼ 1Þ asymptote possesses a high potential barrier caused by DDI.…”

“…with L the angular momentum of the mutual rotation of the molecules with the quantum number l (the partial wave), andĤ rot the sum of the rotational Hamiltonian for each molecule. The operatorVðRÞ holds for the long-range interaction between the molecules, including the DDI (∝ R −3 ) and the van der Waals interaction (∝ R −6 ) [42][43][44][45][46]. The laser field Hamiltonian isĤ f , andĤ I is the interaction between the complex and the laser field, depending on the Rabi frequency Ω and the detuning Δ with respect to the ðj X ¼ 0Þ − ðj b ¼ 1Þ transition energy.…”

“…The laser field Hamiltonian isĤ f , andĤ I is the interaction between the complex and the laser field, depending on the Rabi frequency Ω and the detuning Δ with respect to the ðj X ¼ 0Þ − ðj b ¼ 1Þ transition energy. We introduce the symmetrized fully coupled basis functions in the space-fixed (SF) frame je 1 ; j 1 ; p 1 ; e 2 ; j 2 ; p 2 ; j 12 ; l; J; Mi to characterize the scattering channels [45]: For i ¼ 1, 2, the quantum numbers e i ¼ X, or b, j i , and p i ¼ AE1, respectively, describe the electronic state, the total angular momentum j i , and the parity of each molecule. If e i ¼ X, then p i ¼ ð−1Þ j i , while if e i ¼ b, both parities p i ¼ AE1 exist for a given j i .…”

“…; e 2 ðj 2 ; p 2 Þ; j 12 ; l; J; Mijni þ εje 2 ðj 2 ; p 2 Þ; e 1 ðj 1 ; p 1 Þ; j 12 ; l; J; Mijni; ð2Þ with ε ¼ ð−1Þ j 1 þj 2 −j 12 þl . It imposes ε ¼ 1 for molecules in the same rovibrational level of the same electronic state [45].…”