Producing cold and ultracold Cs2 and CsH molecules through photoassociation and reactions

Date of Completion

January 2001

Keywords

Physics, Molecular|Physics, Atomic

Degree

Ph.D.

Abstract

Several different experiments involving the making of cold and ultracold molecules are performed and proposed. Ultracold cesium molecules are produced in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) by photoassociation near the 6P j, 7Pj, 9S 1/2, 6D3/2, 7D3/2 and doubly excited asymptotes. Perturbation effects related to resonant channel coupling were observed in photoassociation spectra below the 6 P1/2 asymptote. Such effects are used to illustrate a ground state ultracold molecule formation mechanism, which can also be formed in one step photoassociation to the double minimum 31S+m state. In addition, a new technique of making cold molecules of cesium hydride is proposed, using a cold hydrogen beam source and a cesium MOT. Due to reaction energetics, the formed CsH molecules should be in their lowest rovibrational states. ^

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