Production of ultracold ground state LiRb molecules by photoassociation through a resonantly coupled state

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the production of ultracold LiRb molecules in their ground state via photoassociation through a resonantly coupled state, revealing decay physics and a pathway for high-yield molecule transfer.

Contribution

It reports the identification of a resonantly coupled photoassociation resonance in LiRb and a stimulated Raman transfer pathway for efficient ground state molecule production.

Findings

Observation of decay to specific vibrational states

Production of approximately 300 molecules/second in v=0

Potential to produce up to 2×10^5 molecules/second via Raman transfer

Abstract

We report on a resonantly coupled 2(1) - 4 (1) photoassociation resonance in LiRb. This pair of states displays interesting decay physics that hint at interference-like effects caused by two different decay paths. We observe decay to predominantly $X \ ^1\Sigma^+ \ v=43$, with significant numbers of molecules produced in $X \ ^1\Sigma^+ \ v=2$ - 12. This photoassociation resonance also produces $\sim$300 $X \ ^1\Sigma^+ \ v=0 \ J=0$ molecules/second. Finally, we identify a stimulated Raman adiabatic passage transfer pathway from $v=43$ to $v=0$ that has the potential to produce up to $2 \times 10^5$ LiRb molecules/second in the $X \ ^1\Sigma^+ \ v=0 \ J=0$ state.