Prospects for vibrational cooling for RbCs ultra-cold molecules
Year: 2014
Authors: Fioretti A., Lignier H., Comparat D., Gabbanini C.
Autors Affiliation: Istituto Nazionale di Ottica, INO-CNR, via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy,
Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, CNRS, Univ Paris-Sud, Bat. 505, 91405 Orsay, France
Journal/Review: JOURNAL OF THE OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA B-OPTICAL PHYSICS
More Information: In this poster we present our experimental and theoretical efforts for the RbCs case. In this system, quite efficient, short-range PA transitions have been found [7], some of them already naturally producing a large fraction of molecules in the (v=0, J=0) level of the ground-state [8]. As we will show, the structure of the potential energy curves of RbCs is rather unfavorable to the vibrational cooling of the molecules into the (v=0) level, and indeed it was not observed experimentally. On the contrary, vibrational cooling into a higher level, for example the (v=3), should be possible although needs a more complex spectral shaping of the pumping laser.KeyWords: laser cooling; cold molecules; optical pumping