Cavity-controlled ultracold chemistry

TL;DR

This paper proposes using an optical cavity to control and enhance the formation of specific ultracold molecules from atoms, enabling selective reactions and potential collective effects.

Contribution

It introduces a cavity-assisted method to selectively produce ultracold molecules and discusses the efficiency and dynamics under realistic experimental conditions.

Findings

Cavity enhances selectivity of molecular state formation.

Detection of cavity photon heralds successful molecule creation.

Potential observation of collective effects with multiple atoms.

Abstract

Ultracold ground-state molecules can be formed from ultracold atoms via photoassociation followed by a spontaneous emission process. Typically, the molecular products are distributed over a range of final states. Here, we propose to use an optical cavity with high cooperativity to selectively enhance the population of a pre-determined final state by controlling the spontaneous emission. During this process, a photon will be emitted into the cavity mode. Detection of this photon heralds a single reaction. We discuss the efficiency and the dynamics of cavity-assisted molecule formation in the frame of realistic parameters that can be achieved in current ultracold-atom setups. In particular, we consider the production of Rb$_2$ molecules in the $a^3\Sigma_u$ triplet ground state. Moreover, when working with more than two atoms in the cavity, collective enhancement effects in chemistry should be observable.