Stabilization of ultracold molecules using optimal control theory

In recent experiments on ultracold matter, molecules have been produced from ultracold atoms by photoassociation, Feshbach resonances, and three-body recombination. The created molecules are translationally cold, but vibrationally highly excited. This will eventually lead them to be lost from the tr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics Atomic, molecular, and optical physics, 2004-07, Vol.70 (1), Article 013402
Main Authors: Koch, Christiane P., Palao, José P., Kosloff, Ronnie, Masnou-Seeuws, Françoise
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ATOMS
BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
DIMERS
FRANCK-CONDON PRINCIPLE
GROUND STATES
LASER RADIATION
MOLECULES
OPTIMAL CONTROL
PHOTON-ATOM COLLISIONS
PHOTON-MOLECULE COLLISIONS
PULSES
RECOMBINATION
RESONANCE
SODIUM
STABILIZATION
THREE-BODY PROBLEM
TRAPS
VIBRATIONAL STATES
VISIBLE RADIATION
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Summary:In recent experiments on ultracold matter, molecules have been produced from ultracold atoms by photoassociation, Feshbach resonances, and three-body recombination. The created molecules are translationally cold, but vibrationally highly excited. This will eventually lead them to be lost from the trap due to collisions. We propose shaped laser pulses to transfer these highly excited molecules to their ground vibrational level. Optimal control theory is employed to find the light field that will carry out this task with minimum intensity. We present results for the sodium dimer. The final target can be reached to within 99% provided the initial guess field is physically motivated. We find that the optimal fields contain the transition frequencies required by a good Franck-Condon pumping scheme. The analysis identifies the ranges of intensity and pulse duration which are able to achieve this task before any other competing processes take place. Such a scheme could produce stable ultracold molecular samples or even stable molecular Bose-Einstein condensates.
ISSN:1050-2947
1094-1622
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevA.70.013402