Ultracold giant polyatomic Rydberg molecules: coherent control of molecular orientation

TL;DR

This paper predicts and characterizes ultracold giant Rydberg molecules formed from Rydberg atoms and polar molecules, demonstrating their potential for coherent control and entanglement in quantum systems.

Contribution

It introduces a new class of ultracold giant molecules formed via anisotropic charge-dipole interactions and shows how to coherently control their dipole orientations.

Findings

Predicted binding energies of 5-25 GHz for KRb and OD molecules.

Identified double-well structures mimicking chiral molecules.

Demonstrated coherent control of dipole orientations and entangled states.

Abstract

We predict the existence of a class of ultracold giant molecules formed from trapped ultracold Rydberg atoms and polar molecules. The interaction which leads to the formation of such molecules is the anisotropic charge-dipole interaction ($a/R^2$). We show that prominent candidate molecules such as KRb and deuterated hydroxyl (OD) should bind to Rydberg rubidium atoms, with energies $E_b\simeq 5-25$ GHz at distances $R\simeq 0.1-1 \ \mu$m. These molecules form in double wells, mimicking chiral molecules, with each well containing a particular dipole orientation. We prepare a set of correlated dressed electron-dipole eigenstates which are used in a resonant Raman scheme to coherently control the dipole orientation and to create cat-like entangled states of the polar molecule.