Two-photon photoassociation spectroscopy of CsYb: ground-state interaction potential and interspecies scattering lengths

TL;DR

This study uses two-photon photoassociation spectroscopy to measure vibrational levels of CsYb molecules, fit an interaction potential, and predict interspecies scattering lengths across multiple isotopic combinations.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed measurement of near-threshold vibrational levels and an accurate interaction potential for CsYb ground state molecules.

Findings

Supported 77 vibrational levels in the ground-state potential.

Fitted an interaction potential based on experimental data.

Predicted interspecies s-wave scattering lengths for all Cs+Yb isotopic pairs.

Abstract

We perform two-photon photoassociation spectroscopy of the heteronuclear CsYb molecule to measure the binding energies of near-threshold vibrational levels of the $X~^{2}\Sigma_{1/2}^{+}$ molecular ground state. We report results for $^{133}$Cs$^{170}$Yb, $^{133}$Cs$^{173}$Yb and $^{133}$Cs$^{174}$Yb, in each case determining the energy of several vibrational levels including the least-bound state. We fit an interaction potential based on electronic structure calculations to the binding energies for all three isotopologs and find that the ground-state potential supports 77 vibrational levels. We use the fitted potential to predict the interspecies s-wave scattering lengths for all seven Cs+Yb isotopic mixtures.