1303.3420 (M. A. Bellos et al.)

Excitation of ultracold molecules to trilobite-like Rydberg states    [PDF]

M. A. Bellos, R. Carollo, J. Banerjee, E. E. Eyler, P. L. Gould, W. C. Stwalley

We observe "trilobite-like" states of ultracold 85Rb2 molecules, in which a ground-state atom is bound by the electronic cloud of a Rydberg atom. We efficiently populate these states through the ultraviolet excitation of weakly-bound molecules, and access a regime of trilobite-like states at low principal quantum numbers and with vibrational turning points around 35 bohr. This demonstrates that, in addition to previous studies that used free-bound transitions, trilobite-like states can also be excited through bound-bound transitions. We predict that molecules formed by magnetoassociation should be ideal precursors for the excitation of trilobite-like states.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.3420