2003/04/19 by J. Leonard, Jason M. Leonard, M. Walhout +8 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #cond-mat
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.91.073203
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 073203 (2003) · 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2003/04/19 · openalex publication_date 2003/08/15 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We produce giant, purely long-range helium dimers by photoassociation of metastable helium atoms in a magnetically trapped, ultracold cloud. The photoassociation laser is detuned close to the atomic 2(3)S1-2(3)P0 line and produces strong heating of the sample when resonant with molecular bound states. The temperature of the cloud serves as an indicator of the molecular spectrum. We report good agreement between our spectroscopic measurements and our calculations of the five bound states belonging to a 0(+)(u) purely long-range potential well. These previously unobserved states have classical inner turning points of about 150a(0) and outer turning points as large as 1150a(0).