arXiv subjects

Philip D. Gregory

Publications and source records attributed to Philip D. Gregory.

24 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Loss of ultracold RbCs molecules via optical excitation of long-lived two-body collision complexes

We show that the lifetime of ultracold ground-state $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules in an optical trap is limited by fast optical excitation of long-lived two-body collision complexes. We partially suppress this loss mechanism by applying square-wave modulation to the trap intensity, such that the molecules spend 75% of each modulation cycle in the dark. By varying the modulation frequency, we show that the lifetime of the collision complex is $0.53\pm0.06$ ms in the dark. We find that the rate of optical excitation of the collision complex is $3^{+4}_{-2}\times10^{3}$ W$^{-1}$ cm$^2$ s$^{-1}$ for $λ= 1550$ nm, leading to a lifetime of <100 ns for typical trap intensities. These results explain the two-body loss observed in experiments on nonreactive bialkali molecules.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2017

AC Stark Effect in Ultracold Polar RbCs Molecules

We investigate the effect of far-off-resonant trapping light on ultracold bosonic RbCs molecules. We use kHz-precision microwave spectroscopy to measure the differential AC Stark shifts between the ground and first excited rotational levels of the molecule with hyperfine-state resolution. We demonstrate through both experiment and theory that coupling between neighboring hyperfine states manifests in rich structure with many avoided crossings. This coupling may be tuned by rotating the polarization of the linearly polarized trapping light. A combination of spectroscopic and parametric heating measurements allows complete characterization of the molecular polarizability at a wavelength of 1550~nm in both the ground and first excited rotational states.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

Controlling the Rotational and Hyperfine State of Ultracold $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs Molecules

We demonstrate coherent control of both the rotational and hyperfine state of ultracold, chemically stable $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules with external microwave fields. We create a sample of ~2000 molecules in the lowest hyperfine level of the rovibronic ground state N = 0. We measure the transition frequencies to 8 different hyperfine levels of the N = 1 state at two magnetic fields ~23 G apart. We determine accurate values of rotational and hyperfine coupling constants that agree well with previous calculations. We observe Rabi oscillations on each transition, allowing complete population transfer to a selected hyperfine level of N = 1. Subsequent application of a second microwave pulse allows transfer of molecules back to a different hyperfine level of N = 0.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

Measurement of the binding energy of ultracold $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules using an offset-free optical frequency comb

We report the binding energy of $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules in their rovibrational ground state measured using an offset-free optical frequency comb based on difference frequency generation technology. We create molecules in the absolute ground state using stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) with a transfer efficiency of 88\%. By measuring the absolute frequencies of our STIRAP lasers, we find the energy-level difference from an initial weakly-bound Feshbach state to the rovibrational ground state with a resolution of 5 kHz over an energy-level difference of more than 114 THz; this lets us discern the hyperfine splitting of the ground state. Combined with theoretical models of the Feshbach state binding energies and ground-state hyperfine structure, we determine a zero-field binding energy of $h\times114\,268\,135\,237(5)(50)$ kHz. To our knowledge, this is the most accurate determination to date of the dissociation energy of a molecule.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2015

Absolute absorption on the potassium D lines:theory and experiment

We present a detailed study of the absolute Doppler-broadened absorption of a probe beam scanned across the potassium D lines in a thermal vapour. Spectra using a weak probe were measured on the 4S $\rightarrow$ 4P transition and compared to the theoretical model of the electric susceptibility detailed by Zentile et al. (2015) in the code named ElecSus. Comparisons were also made on the 4S $\rightarrow$ 5P transition with an adapted version of ElecSus. This is the first experimental test of ElecSus on an atom with a ground state hyperfine splitting smaller than that of the Doppler width. An excellent agreement was found between ElecSus and experimental measurements at a variety of temperatures with rms errors of $\sim 10^{-3}$. We have also demonstrated the use of ElecSus as an atomic vapour thermometry tool, and present a possible new measurement technique of transition decay rates which we predict to have a precision $\sim$ 3 kHz.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2014

Creation of ultracold $^{87}$RbCs molecules in the rovibrational ground state

We report the creation of a sample of over 1000 ultracold $^{87}$RbCs molecules in the lowest rovibrational ground state, from an atomic mixture of $^{87}$Rb and Cs, by magnetoassociation on an interspecies Feshbach resonance followed by stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). We measure the binding energy of the RbCs molecule to be $h c \times 3811.576(1)$ cm$^{-1}$ and the $|v''=0, J''=0>$ to $|v''=0, J''=2>$ splitting to be $h \times 2940.09(6)$ MHz. Stark spectroscopy of the rovibrational ground state yields an electric dipole moment of 1.225(3)(8) D, where the values in parentheses are the statistical and systematic uncertainties, respectively. We demonstrate that a space-fixed dipole moment of 0.355(2)(4) D is accessible in RbCs, which is substantially higher than in previous work.

physics.atom-ph↗