Observation of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
Observation of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
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DOI：
10.1038/nature07945
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发表时间：
2009-04-23
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Pfau, Tilman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bendkowsky, Vera;Butscher, Bjoern;Pfau, Tilman
里德伯原子有一个主量子数非常高的电子，因此可以表现出不寻常的长程相互作用。一个例子是两个这样的原子通过多极力结合形成具有非常大的核间距离的里德伯-里德伯分子（1-3）。值得注意的是，成键相互作用也可以由具有负散射长度的里德伯电子从基态原子的低能散射引起（4，5）。在这种情况下，散射诱导的吸引相互作用将基态原子与里德伯原子结合在里德伯电子波函数内的一个很好的定域位置，从而产生核间距离为数千玻尔半径的巨分子（6-8）。在这里，我们报告的光谱表征的铷里德伯原子，在球对称的s状态，并有主量子数，n，在34和40之间形成的这种异国情调的分子状态。我们发现Rydberg分子Rb（5s）-Rb（ns）的振动基态和第一激发态的光谱与简单模型的预测符合得很好。这些数据使我们能够在低能区（动能，
Rydberg atoms have an electron in a state with a very high principal quantum number, and as a result can exhibit unusually long-range interactions. One example is the bonding of two such atoms by multipole forces to form Rydberg-Rydberg molecules with very large internuclear distances(1-3). Notably, bonding interactions can also arise from the low-energy scattering of a Rydberg electron with negative scattering length from a ground-state atom(4,5). In this case, the scattering-induced attractive interaction binds the ground-state atom to the Rydberg atom at a well-localized position within the Rydberg electron wavefunction and thereby yields giant molecules that can have internuclear separations of several thousand Bohr radii(6-8). Here we report the spectroscopic characterization of such exotic molecular states formed by rubidium Rydberg atoms that are in the spherically symmetric s state and have principal quantum numbers, n, between 34 and 40. We find that the spectra of the vibrational ground state and of the first excited state of the Rydberg molecule, the rubidium dimer Rb(5s)-Rb(ns), agree well with simple model predictions. The data allow us to extract the s-wave scattering length for scattering between the Rydberg electron and the ground-state atom, Rb(5s), in the low-energy regime (kinetic energy,