Ultracold Dipolar Molecules Composed of Strongly Magnetic Atoms

TL;DR

This paper reports the creation and characterization of ultracold magnetic dipolar molecules from erbium atoms, demonstrating their large dipole moments, controllable orientation, and reduced relaxation rates in quasi-two-dimensional geometries.

Contribution

It introduces a new type of ultracold magnetic dipolar molecules formed from erbium atoms and explores their properties and potential for quantum control.

Findings

Molecules exhibit very large magnetic dipole moments.

Orientation of molecules can be controlled experimentally.

Relaxation rates are reduced in quasi-2D geometries due to dipolar anisotropy.

Abstract

In a combined experimental and theoretical effort, we demonstrate a novel type of dipolar system made of ultracold bosonic dipolar molecules with large magnetic dipole moments. Our dipolar molecules are formed in weakly bound Feshbach molecular states from a sample of strongly magnetic bosonic erbium atoms. We show that the ultracold magnetic molecules can carry very large dipole moments and we demonstrate how to create and characterize them, and how to change their orientation. Finally, we confirm that the relaxation rates of molecules in a quasi-two dimensional geometry can be reduced by using the anisotropy of the dipole-dipole interaction and that this reduction follows a universal dipolar behavior.