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Molecule-molecule and atom-molecule collisions with ultracold RbCs molecules

Gregory, P.; Blackmore, J.; Frye, M.; Fernley, L.; Bromley, S.; Hutson, J.M.; Cornish, S.L.

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Authors

Dr Phil Gregory p.d.gregory@durham.ac.uk
Assistant Professor - Royal Society University Research Fellow

J. Blackmore

Luke Fernley luke.fernley@durham.ac.uk
PGR Student Doctor of Philosophy

S. Bromley



Abstract

Understanding ultracold collisions involving molecules is of fundamental importance for current experiments, where inelastic collisions typically limit the lifetime of molecular ensembles in optical traps. Here we present a broad study of optically trapped ultracold RbCs molecules in collisions with one another, in reactive collisions with Rb atoms, and in nonreactive collisions with Cs atoms. For experiments with RbCs alone, we show that by modulating the intensity of the optical trap, such that the molecules spend 75\% of each modulation cycle in the dark, we partially suppress collisional loss of the molecules. This is evidence for optical excitation of molecule pairs mediated via sticky collisions. We find that the suppression is less effective for molecules not prepared in the spin-stretched hyperfine ground state. This may be due either to longer lifetimes for complexes or to laser-free decay pathways. For atom-molecule mixtures, RbCs+Rb and RbCs+Cs, we demonstrate that the rate of collisional loss of molecules scales linearly with the density of atoms. This indicates that, in both cases, the loss of molecules is rate-limited by two-body atom-molecule processes. For both mixtures, we measure loss rates that are below the thermally averaged universal limit.

Citation

Gregory, P., Blackmore, J., Frye, M., Fernley, L., Bromley, S., Hutson, J., & Cornish, S. (2021). Molecule-molecule and atom-molecule collisions with ultracold RbCs molecules. New Journal of Physics, 23, Article 125004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac3c63

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 23, 2021
Online Publication Date Dec 13, 2021
Publication Date 2021-12
Deposit Date Sep 15, 2021
Publicly Available Date Nov 26, 2021
Journal New Journal of Physics
Publisher IOP Publishing
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 23
Article Number 125004
DOI https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac3c63

Files

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.






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