Hyperfine energy levels of alkali-metal dimers: Ground-state polar molecules in electric and magnetic fields

2008/07/11 by J. Aldegunde, Ben A. Rivington, Piotr S. Żuchowski +1 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Alkali metal #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic physics #Chemistry #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Coupling (piping) #Electric field #Electric field gradient #Ground state #Heteronuclear molecule #Hyperfine coupling #Hyperfine structure #Magnetic field #Materials science #Molecule #Physics #Polar #Quadrupole #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Spin (aerodynamics) #physics.atom-ph #physics.chem-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.78.033434

8 pages, 6 figures

arxiv created 2008/07/11 · openalex publication_date 2008/09/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We investigate the energy levels of heteronuclear alkali-metal dimers in levels correlating with the lowest rotational level of the ground electronic state, which are important in efforts to produce ground-state ultracold molecules. We use density-functional theory to calculate nuclear quadrupole and magnetic coupling constants for KRb and RbCs and explore the hyperfine structure in the presence of electric and magnetic fields. For nonrotating states, the zero-field splittings are dominated by the electron-mediated part of the nuclear spin-spin coupling. They are a few kilohertz for KRb isotopologs and a few tens of kilohertz for RbCs isotopologs.

Citations

• “Stückelberg Interferometry” with Ultracold Molecules
• Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple
• Table of nuclear magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments
• Development of the Colle-Salvetti correlation-energy formula into a functional of the electron density
• Emergence of a molecular Bose–Einstein condensate from a Fermi gas
• Weakly Bound Dimers of Fermionic Atoms
• Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules
• Density-functional thermochemistry. III. The role of exact exchange
• Chemistry with ADF
• Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules

Cited by

• Universal ultracold collision rates for polar molecules of two alkali-metal atoms