Demonstration of the temporal matter-wave Talbot effect for trapped matter waves

We demonstrate the temporal Talbot effect for trapped matter waves using ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. We investigate the phase evolution of an array of essentially non-interacting matter waves and observe matter-wave collapse and revival in the form of a Talbot interference pattern. By using long expansion times, we image momentum space with sub-recoil resolution, allowing us to observe fractional Talbot fringes up to tenth order

Precision molecular spectroscopy for ground state transfer of molecular quantum gases

One possibility for the creation of ultracold, high-phase-space-density quantum gases of molecules in the rovibrational ground state relies on first associating weakly-bound molecules from quantum-degenerate atomic gases on a Feshbach resonance and then transfering the molecules via several steps of coherent two-photon stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) into the rovibronic ground state. Here, in ultracold samples of Cs_2 Feshbach molecules produced out of ultracold samples of Cs atoms, we observe several optical transitions to deeply bound rovibrational levels of the excited 0_u^+ molecular potentials with high resolution. At least one of these transitions, although rather weak, allows efficient STIRAP transfer into the deeply bound vibrational level |v=73> of the singlet X ^1Sigma_g^+ ground state potential, as recently demonstrated. From this level, the rovibrational ground state level |v=0, J=0> can be reached with one more transfer step. In total, our results show that coherent ground state transfer for Cs_2 is possible using a maximum of two successive two-photon processes or one single four-photon STIRAP process.Comment: 6 figures, 1 tabl

Quantum Gas of Deeply Bound Ground State Molecules

We create an ultracold dense quantum gas of ground state molecules bound by more than 1000 wavenumbers by stimulated two-photon transfer of molecules associated on a Feshbach resonance from a Bose-Einstein condensate of cesium atoms. The transfer efficiency exceeds 80%. In the process, the initial loose, long-range electrostatic bond of the Feshbach molecule is coherently transformed into a tight chemical bond. We demonstrate coherence of the transfer in a Ramsey-type experiment and show that the molecular sample is not heated during the transfer. Our results show that the preparation of a quantum gas of molecules in arbitrary rovibrational states is possible and that the creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate of molecules in their rovibronic ground state is within reach.Comment: 4 figure

Production of a Quantum Gas of Rovibronic Ground-State Molecules in an Optical Lattice

Recent years have seen tremendous progress in the field of cold and ultracold molecules. A central goal in the field is currently the realization of stable rovibronic ground-state molecular samples in the regime of quantum degeneracy, e.g. in the form of molecular Bose-Einstein condensates, molecular degenerate Fermi gases, or, when an optical lattice is present, molecular Mott-insulator phases. However, molecular samples are not readily cooled to the extremely low temperatures at which quantum degeneracy occurs. In particular, laser cooling, the 'workhorse' for the field of atomic quantum gases, is generally not applicable to molecular samples. Here we take an important step beyond previous work1 and provide details on the realization of an ultracold quantum gas of ground-state dimer molecules trapped in an optical lattice as recently reported in Ref. 2. We demonstrate full control over all internal and external quantum degrees of freedom for the ground-state molecules by deterministically preparing the molecules in a single quantum state, i.e. in a specific hyperfine sublevel of the rovibronic ground state, while the molecules are trapped in the motional ground state of the individual lattice wells. We circumvent the problem of cooling by associating weakly-bound molecules out of a zero-temperature atomic Mott-insulator state and by transferring these to the absolute ground state in a four-photon STIRAP process. Our preparation procedure directly leads to a long-lived, lattice-trapped molecular many-body state, which we expect to form the platform for many of the envisioned future experiments with molecular quantum gases, e.g. on precision molecular spectroscopy, quantum information science, and dipolar quantum systems

Feshbach resonances, weakly bound molecular states, and coupled-channel potentials for cesium at high magnetic fields

We explore the scattering properties of ultracold ground-state Cs atoms at magnetic fields between 450 G (45 mT) and 1000 G. We identify 17 previously unreported Feshbach resonances, including two very broad ones near 549 and 787 G. We measure the binding energies of several different dimer states by magnetic field modulation spectroscopy. We use least-squares fitting to these experimental results, together with previous measurements at lower field, to determine a six-parameter model of the long-range interaction potential, designated M2012. Coupled-channels calculations using M2012 provide an accurate mapping between the s-wave scattering length and the magnetic field over the entire range of fields considered. This mapping is crucial for experiments that rely on precise tuning of the scattering length, such as those on Efimov physics

Towards the production of ultracold ground-state RbCs molecules: Feshbach resonances, weakly bound states, and the coupled-channel model

We have studied interspecies scattering in an ultracold mixture of 87Rb and 133Cs atoms, both in their lowest-energy spin states. The three-body loss signatures of 30 incoming s- and p-wave magnetic Feshbach resonances over the range 0 to 667 G have been cataloged. Magnetic field modulation spectroscopy was used to observe molecular states bound by up to 2.5 MHz×h. We have created RbCs Feshbach molecules using two of the resonances. Magnetic moment spectroscopy along the magnetoassociation pathway from 197 to 182 G gives results consistent with the observed and calculated dependence of the binding energy on magnetic field strength. We have set up a coupled-channel model of the interaction and have used direct least-squares fitting to refine its parameters to fit the experimental results from the Feshbach molecules, in addition to the Feshbach resonance positions and the spectroscopic results for deeply bound levels. The final model gives a good description of all the experimental results and predicts a large resonance near 790 G, which may be useful for tuning the interspecies scattering properties. Quantum numbers and vibrational wave functions from the model can also be used to choose optimal initial states of Feshbach molecules for their transfer to the rovibronic ground state using stimulated Raman adiabatic passage