Hannover 2020 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 30: Ultra-cold atoms, ions, and BEC VII (joint session A/Q)

A 30.2: Talk

Friday, March 13, 2020, 11:30–11:45, f303

Spectroscopy of interorbital dimers and pair states in Ytterbium-171 — •Oscar Bettermann^{1, 2}, Nelson Darkwah Oppong^{1, 2}, Giulio Pasqualetti^{1, 2}, Luis Riegger^{1, 2}, Immanuel Bloch^{1, 2}, and Simon Fölling^{1, 2} — ¹Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching, Germany — ²Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany

An outstanding feature of alkaline-earth-(like) atoms is the existence of a metastable excited electronic state connected to the ground state via an ultranarrow "clock" transition. The interactions between atoms in the different electronic states are governed by the molecular interaction potentials between the atoms and the bound states formed inside these potentials.

Here, we report on the direct production and spectroscopy of the least bound state in Ytterbium-171 and characterization of the interactions between atoms in different electronic states. The dimers are produced by direct single-photon photoassociation via the clock line, in a deep three-dimensional optical lattice. In strong contrast to the shallow bound state present in Ytterbium-173, we find a much larger binding energy, with a much smaller molecular wavefunction therefore largely independent of the external potentials. We also show that the free-to-bound transition can be made insensitive to the depth of the trapping potential, an important aspect in the realization of optical molecular clocks.