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Optical Autler–Townes Spectroscopy in a Heteronuclear Mixture of Laser-Cooled Atoms

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Abstract

We report on optical Autler–Townes spectroscopy in a heteronuclear mixture of \( {}^{87} \)Rb and \( {}^{176} \)Yb in a continuously loaded double-species magneto-optical trap. An excited vibrational level of Rb*Yb which is energetically close to the \( {5}^2{\mathrm{P}}_{1/2} \) state of Rb is coupled by a strong laser field to a vibrational level in the ground state of RbYb and probed by a weak probe laser field. The induced Autler–Townes splittings in the photoassociation spectra allow us to determine relative Franck–Condon factors of molecular transitions in RbYb.

This article is part of the topical collection “Enlightening the World with the Laser” - Honoring T. W. Hänsch guest edited by Tilman Esslinger, Nathalie Picqué, and Thomas Udem.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this paper, we follow the notation in [25] with \( \Delta {v}^{\prime }=0 \) being the most weakly bound state. In contrast, in [27] the vibrational state is labelled by \( v=-\Delta {v}^{\prime }+1 \).

    Fig. 1
    figure 1

    Relevant level structure (not to scale) of the RbYb molecule and detuning conventions as described in the text. Both the coupling and the PA probe laser are operated near the D1-line of Rb at \( 795\mathrm{nm} \). For clarity sake, not all molecular potentials converging onto the ground \( {}^2{\mathrm{S}}_{1/2} \) and the excited \( {}^2{\mathrm{P}}_{1/2} \) state of Rb are depicted but only representative ones for the ground and the excited molecular state, which converge to a specific hyperfine level of the atomic ground (F) or excited (\( {F}^{\prime } \)) state

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Acknowledgements

A. G. wants to say thanks to Ted Hänsch for introducing him to laser spectroscopy and ultracold atoms, the topics that still guide his research today. He is grateful that Ted Hänsch convinced him as a young diploma student that it would offer great perspectives to learn about lasers and atoms in his group and he was right. It is amazing to see that after almost 25-year- home-built ECDL diode lasers in the Hänsch design are as abundant in laboratories worldwide as ever including the laboratory of A. G. where the knowledge about lasers that A. G. has acquired during his diploma and Ph.D. thesis in the Hänsch laboratories is still transferred to Bachelor students.

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  1. Institut Für Experimentalphysik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany

    C. Bruni, F. Münchow & A. Görlitz

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  1. C. Bruni
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Correspondence to A. Görlitz .

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  1. Institute for Applied Physics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Dieter Meschede

  2. Max-Planck-Institute for Quantenoptik (MPQ), Garching, Germany

    Thomas Udem

  3. Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Tilman Esslinger

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Bruni, C., Münchow, F., Görlitz, A. (2018). Optical Autler–Townes Spectroscopy in a Heteronuclear Mixture of Laser-Cooled Atoms. In: Meschede, D., Udem, T., Esslinger, T. (eds) Exploring the World with the Laser. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64346-5_4

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