Work

Vibrationally highly excited trilobite molecules stabilized by nonadiabatic coupling

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: We report on the observation of highly excited ( ν ∼ 100 ) vibrational states of a trilobite ultralong-range Rydberg molecule in Rb 87 . These states manifest spectroscopically in a regularly spaced series of peaks red-detuned from the 25 f 7 / 2 dissociation threshold. The existence and observed stability of these states require the almost complete suppression of the adiabatic decay pathway induced by the P -wave shape resonance of Rb. This stabilization is predicted to occur only for certain Rydberg levels where the avoided crossing between trilobite and P -wave-dominated butterfly potential energy curves nearly vanishes, allowing the vibrational states to diabatically traverse the crossing with almost unit probability. This is the first direct measurement of beyond-Born-Oppenheimer physics in long-range Rydberg molecules, and paves the way for future experiments to access and manipulate wave packets formed from high-lying vibrational states.

Source: Physical Review Research

DOI: 10.1103/49ky-d8mm

Authors: Rohan Srikumar, Markus Exner, Richard Blättner, Peter Schmelcher, Matthew T. Eiles, Herwig Ott

Institutions: Universität Hamburg, Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau, Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems

Language: English

Topic: Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates

Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,625

Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft