Ultracold giant polyatomic Rydberg molecules: coherent control of molecular orientation

We predict the existence of a class of ultracold giant molecules formed from trapped ultracold Rydberg atoms and polar molecules. The interaction which leads to the formation of such molecules is the anisotropic charge-dipole interaction ($a/R^2$). We show that prominent candidate molecules such as KRb and deuterated hydroxyl (OD) should bind to Rydberg rubidium atoms, with energies $E_b\simeq 5-25$ GHz at distances $R\simeq 0.1-1 \ \mu$m. These molecules form in double wells, mimicking chiral molecules, with each well containing a particular dipole orientation. We prepare a set of correlated dressed electron-dipole eigenstates which are used in a resonant Raman scheme to coherently control the dipole orientation and to create cat-like entangled states of the polar molecule.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Green's Functions and the Adiabatic Hyperspherical Method

We address the few-body problem using the adiabatic hyperspherical representation. A general form for the hyperangular Green's function in $d$-dimensions is derived. The resulting Lippmann-Schwinger equation is solved for the case of three-particles with s-wave zero-range interactions. Identical particle symmetry is incorporated in a general and intuitive way. Complete semi-analytic expressions for the nonadiabatic channel couplings are derived. Finally, a model to describe the atom-loss due to three-body recombination for a three-component fermi-gas of $^{6}$Li atoms is presented.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

Ultralong-range polyatomic Rydberg molecules formed by a polar perturber

The internal electric field of a Rydberg atom electron can bind a polar molecule to form a giant ultralong-range stable polyatomic molecule. Such molecules not only share their properties with Rydberg atoms, they possess huge permanent electric dipole moments and in addition allow for coherent control of the polar molecule orientation. In this work, we include additional Rydberg manifolds which couple to the nearly degenerate set of Rydberg states employed in [S. T. Rittenhouse and H. R. Sadeghpour, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 243002 (2010)]. The coupling of a set of $(n+3)s$ Rydberg states with the $n(l>2)$ nearly degenerate Rydberg manifolds in alkali metal atoms leads to pronounced avoided crossings in the Born-Oppenheimer potentials. Ultimately, these avoided crossings enable the formation of the giant polyatomic Rydberg molecules with standard two-photon laser photoassociation techniques.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Observation of blue-shifted ultralong-range Cs2_{2} Rydberg molecules

We observe ultralong-range blue-shifted Cs$_{2}$ molecular states near $ns_{1/2}$ Rydberg states in an optical dipole trap, where $31\leq n\leq34$. The accidental near degeneracy of $(n-4)l$ and $ns$ Rydberg states for $l>2$ in Cs, due to the small fractional $ns$ quantum defect, leads to non-adiabatic coupling among these states, producing potential wells above the $ns$ thresholds. Two important consequences of admixing high angular momentum states with $ns$ states are the formation of large permanent dipole moments, $\sim 15-100\,$Debye, and accessibility of these states via two-photon association. The observed states are in excellent agreement with theory. Both projections of the total angular momentum on the internuclear axis are visible in the experiment