Formation of ultracold $^{7}$Li$^{85}$Rb molecules in the lowest triplet electronic state by photoassociation and their detection by ionization spectroscopy

Abstract

We report the formation of ultracold $^{7}$Li$^{85}$Rb molecules in the $a^{3}\Sigma^{+}$ electronic state by photoassociation (PA) and their detection via resonantly enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI). With our dual-species Li and Rb magneto-optical trap (MOT) apparatus, we detect PA resonances with binding energies up to ~62 cm$^{-1}$ below the $^{7}$Li 2s $^{2}S_{1/2}$ $+$ $^{85}$Rb 5p $^{2}P_{1/2}$ asymptote. In addition, we use REMPI spectroscopy to probe the $a^{3}\Sigma^{+}$ state and excited electronic $3^{3} \Pi$ and $4^{3} \Sigma^{+}$ states, and identify $a^{3}\Sigma^{+} (v" = 7 - 13)$, $3^{3} \Pi (v'_{\Pi} = 0 - 10)$ and $4^{3} \Sigma^{+} (v'_{\Sigma} = 0 - 5)$ vibrational levels. Our line assignments agree well with ab initio calculations. These preliminary spectroscopic studies on previously unobserved electronic states are crucial to discovering transition pathways for transferring ultracold LiRb molecules created via PA to deeply bound rovibrational levels of the electronic ground state.