32 research outputs found
Photoassociation and coherent transient dynamics in the interaction of ultracold rubidium atoms with shaped femtosecond pulses - I. Experiment
We experimentally investigate various processes present in the
photoassociative interaction of an ultracold atomic sample with shaped
femtosecond laser pulses. We demonstrate the photoassociation of pairs of
rubidium atoms into electronically excited, bound molecular states using
spectrally cut femtosecond laser pulses tuned below the rubidium D1 or D2
asymptote. Time-resolved pump-probe spectra reveal coherent oscillations of the
molecular formation rate, which are due to coherent transient dynamics in the
electronic excitation. The oscillation frequency corresponds to the detun-ing
of the spectral cut position to the asymptotic transition frequency of the
rubidium D1 or D2 lines, respectively. Measurements of the molecular
photoassociation signal as a function of the pulse energy reveal a non-linear
dependence and indicate a non-perturbative excitation process. Chirping the
association laser pulse allowed us to change the phase of the coherent
transients. Furthermore, a signature for molecules in the electronic ground
state is found, which is attributed to molecule formation by femtosecond
photoassociation followed by spontaneous decay. In a subsequent article [A.
Merli et al., submitted] quantum mechanical calculations are presented, which
compare well with the experimental data and reveal further details about the
observed coherent transient dynamics
Coherent control with shaped femtosecond laser pulses applied to ultracold molecules
We report on coherent control of excitation processes of translationally
ultracold rubidium dimers in a magneto-optical trap by using shaped femtosecond
laser pulses. Evolution strategies are applied in a feedback loop in order to
optimize the photoexcitation of the Rb2 molecules, which subsequently undergo
ionization or fragmentation. A superior performance of the resulting pulses
compared to unshaped pulses of the same pulse energy is obtained by
distributing the energy among specific spectral components. The demonstration
of coherent control to ultracold ensembles opens a path to actively influence
fundamental photo-induced processes in molecular quantum gases
Theoretical model for ultracold molecule formation via adaptive feedback control
We investigate pump-dump photoassociation of ultracold molecules with
amplitude- and phase-modulated femtosecond laser pulses. For this purpose a
perturbative model for the light-matter interaction is developed and combined
with a genetic algorithm for adaptive feedback control of the laser pulse
shapes. The model is applied to the formation of 85Rb2 molecules in a
magneto-optical trap. We find for optimized pulse shapes an improvement for the
formation of ground state molecules by more than a factor of 10 compared to
unshaped pulses at the same pump-dump delay time, and by 40% compared to
unshaped pulses at the respective optimal pump-dump delay time. Since our model
yields directly the spectral amplitudes and phases of the optimized pulses, the
results are directly applicable in pulse shaping experiments