2008/05/23 by Anthony Gorges, Anthony R. Gorges, Nicholas S. Bingham +6
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Excited state #Ground state #Heteronuclear molecule #Homonuclear molecule #Hyperfine structure #Isotope #Molecule #Nuclear magnetic resonance #Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy #Nuclear physics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.78.033420
about 8 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2008/05/23 · openalex publication_date 2008/09/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We have studied heteronuclear and homonuclear excited-state--ground-state collisions by loading both 85Rb and 87Rb into a far off resonant trap (FORT). Because of the relatively weak confinement of the FORT, we expect the hyperfine structure of the different isotopes to play a crucial role in the collision rates. This dependence on hyperfine structure allows us to measure collisions associated with long-range interatomic potentials of different structures, such as long and short ranged; or such as purely attractive, purely repulsive, or mixed attractive and repulsive. We observe significantly different loss rates for different excited-state potentials. Additionally, we observe that some collisional channels' loss rates are saturated at our operating intensities (15\phantom\rule0.3em0exmW∕cm2). These losses are important limitations in loading dual isotope optical traps.