Dark state experiments with ultracold, deeply-bound triplet molecules

TL;DR

This paper investigates dark quantum superposition states in ultracold Rb2 molecules, demonstrating their creation, dynamics, and suppression of wavepacket oscillations through laser-induced phase locking, advancing understanding of molecular quantum states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multilevel dark state in ultracold molecules and develops experimental methods to analyze their properties and dynamics.

Findings

Suppression of wavepacket oscillations in deeply bound molecules

Identification of a multilevel dark state due to laser phase locking

Experimental techniques for characterizing atom-laser coupled systems

Abstract

We examine dark quantum superposition states of weakly bound Rb2 Feshbach molecules and tightly bound triplet Rb2 molecules in the rovibrational ground state, created by subjecting a pure sample of Feshbach molecules in an optical lattice to a bichromatic Raman laser field. We analyze both experimentally and theoretically the creation and dynamics of these dark states. Coherent wavepacket oscillations of deeply bound molecules in lattice sites, as observed in one of our previous experiments, are suppressed due to laser-induced phase locking of molecular levels. This can be understood as the appearance of a novel multilevel dark state. In addition, the experimental methods developed help to determine important properties of our coupled atom / laser system.