Production of trilobite Rydberg molecule dimers with thousand-Debye permanent electric dipole moments

TL;DR

This paper reports the experimental creation of ultralong-range cesium Rydberg molecules with giant permanent electric dipole moments, achieved through a novel hybrid approach involving degenerate Rydberg states, and supported by detailed theoretical calculations.

Contribution

It introduces a new method to produce trilobite Rydberg molecules with thousand-Debye dipole moments, expanding the understanding of symmetry breaking and quantum control in molecular physics.

Findings

Observation of ultralong-range molecules with giant dipole moments

Quantitative agreement with coupled-channel theoretical models

Demonstration of a new hybrid molecule formation technique

Abstract

We observe that when an ultracold ground state cesium (Cs) atom becomes bound within the electronic cloud of an extended Cs electronic orbit, ultralong-range molecules with giant (kilo-Debye) permanent electric dipole moments form. Large molecular permanent electric dipole moments are challenging to experimentally realize. Meeting this challenge has garnered significant interest because permanent electric dipole moments are important for understanding symmetry breaking in molecular physics, control of chemical reactions and realization of strongly correlated many-body quantum systems. These new hybrid class of `trilobite' molecules are predominated with degenerate Rydberg manifolds, making them difficult to produce with conventional optical association. Their behavior is quantitatively reproduced with detailed coupled-channel calculations.