We investigated transition strengths from ultracold weakly bound 41K87Rb
molecules produced via the photoassociation of laser-cooled atoms. An accurate
potential energy curve of the excited state (3)1Sigma+ was constructed by
carrying out direct potential fit analysis of rotational spectra obtained via
depletion spectroscopy. Vibrational energies and rotational constants extracted
from the depletion spectra of v'=41-50 levels were combined with the results of
the previous spectroscopic study, and they were used for modifying an ab initio
potential. An accuracy of 0.14% in vibrational level spacing and 0.3% in
rotational constants was sufficient to predict the large observed variation in
transition strengths among the vibrational levels. Our results show that
transition strengths from weakly bound molecules are a good measure of the
accuracy of an excited state potential.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
