Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA.
Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, CNRS/Université Paris-Sud/ENS Cachan, Bâtiment 505, 91405 Orsay, France.
Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Aug 14;115(7):073201. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.073201. Epub 2015 Aug 13.
The creation of ultracold molecules is currently limited to diatomic species. In this Letter, we present a theoretical description of the photoassociation of ultracold atoms and molecules to create ultracold excited triatomic molecules, thus being a novel example of a light-assisted ultracold chemical reaction. The calculation of the photoassociation rate of an ultracold Cs_{2} molecule in its rovibrational ground state with an ultracold Cs atom at frequencies close to its resonant excitation is reported, based on the solution of the quantum dynamics involving the atom-molecule long-range interactions and assuming a model potential for the short-range physics. The rate for the formation of excited Cs_{3} molecules is predicted to be comparable with currently observed atom-atom photoassociation rates. We formulate an experimental proposal to observe this process relying on the available techniques of optical lattices and standard photoassociation spectroscopy.
目前，超冷分子的产生仅限于双原子物种。在这封信中，我们提出了一种理论描述，即在超冷原子和分子之间进行光缔合，以创建超冷激发的三原子分子，从而成为光辅助超冷化学反应的一个新例子。我们报道了在接近共振激发的频率下，用超冷铯原子与超冷 Cs_{2}分子的转动-振动基态进行光缔合的速率计算，这是基于涉及原子-分子长程相互作用的量子动力学的解，同时假设了一个短程物理的模型势。预计形成激发态 Cs_{3}分子的速率可与目前观察到的原子-原子光缔合速率相媲美。我们提出了一个实验方案，通过利用现有的光学晶格和标准光缔合光谱技术来观察这一过程。
