Rabi Oscillations between Atomic and Molecular Condensates Driven with Coherent One-Color Photoassociation

TL;DR

This paper reports the observation of Rabi oscillations between atomic and molecular Bose-Einstein condensates driven by coherent one-color photoassociation, demonstrating control over atom-molecule conversion dynamics.

Contribution

The study demonstrates coherent control of atom-molecule conversion in a BEC using one-color photoassociation, achieving Rabi oscillations with frequencies comparable to decoherence rates.

Findings

Observed Rabi oscillations between atomic and molecular condensates.

Identified asymmetric excitation profiles due to transient spectral shifts.

Achieved atom-molecule Rabi frequencies comparable to decoherence rates.

Abstract

We demonstrate coherent one-color photoassociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, which results in Rabi oscillations between atomic and molecular condensates. We attain atom-molecule Rabi frequencies that are comparable to decoherence rates by driving photoassociation of atoms in an $^{88}$Sr condensate to a weakly-bound level of the metastable $^{1}S_{0}+^{3}P_{1}$ molecular potential, which has a long lifetime and large Franck-Condon overlap integral with the ground scattering state. Transient shifts and broadenings of the excitation spectrum are clearly seen at short times, and they create an asymmetric excitation profile that only displays Rabi oscillations for blue detuning from resonance.