Photoassociative production of ultracold heteronuclearYbLi*molecules

Richard Roy, Rajendra Shrestha, Alaina Green, Subhadeep Gupta, Ming Li, Svetlana Kotochigova, Alexander Petrov, Chi Hong Yuen
2016 Physical Review A  
We report on the production of ultracold heteronuclear YbLi* molecules in a dual-species magneto-optical trap by photoassociation (PA). The formation of the electronically excited molecules close to dissociation was observed by trap loss spectroscopy. We find 4 rovibrational states within a range of 250 GHz below the Yb(^1S_0) + Li(^2P_1/2) asymptote and observe isotopic PA line shifts in mixtures of ^6Li with ^174Yb, ^172Yb, and ^176Yb. We also describe our theoretical ab-initio calculation
more » ... the relevant electronic potentials and utilize it to analyze and identify the lines in the experimentally observed spectrum.
doi:10.1103/physreva.94.033413 fatcat:7grtgshrlfdzjhdc5mljylkypa