Harnessing the Power of Adiabatic Curve Crossing to Populate the Highly Vibrationally Excited <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">H</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math> (<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>v</mml:mi><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>7</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:math>, <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>j</mml:mi><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>0</mml:mn></mml:math>) Level
William E. Perreault, Haowen Zhou, Nandini Mukherjee, Richard N. Zare
Abstract
A large ensemble of ∼10^{9} H_{2} (v=7, j=0) molecules is prepared in the collision-free environment of a supersonic beam by transferring nearly the entire H_{2} (v=0, j=0) ground-state population, where v and j are the vibrational and rotational quantum numbers, respectively. This is accomplished by controlling the crossing of the optically dressed adiabatic states using a pair of phase coherent laser pulses. The preparation of highly vibrationally excited H_{2} molecules opens new opportunities to test fundamental physical principles using two loosely bound yet entangled H atoms.
Topics & Concepts
Excited stateAdiabatic processPhysicsAtomic physicsPopulationQuantum mechanicsSociologyDemographyCold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein CondensatesQuantum optics and atomic interactionsLaser-Matter Interactions and Applications