Ultracold Dipolar Gas of Fermionic [superscript 23]Na[superscript 40]K Molecules in Their Absolute Ground State

We report on the creation of an ultracold dipolar gas of fermionic [superscript 23]Na[superscript 40]Kmolecules in their absolute rovibrational and hyperfine ground state. Starting from weakly bound Feshbach molecules, we demonstrate hyperfine resolved two-photon transfer into the singlet X[superscr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Park, Jee Woo, Will, Sebastian, Zwierlein, Martin Wolfram
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/97020
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4329-5163
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8120-8548
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2672-5264
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Summary:We report on the creation of an ultracold dipolar gas of fermionic [superscript 23]Na[superscript 40]Kmolecules in their absolute rovibrational and hyperfine ground state. Starting from weakly bound Feshbach molecules, we demonstrate hyperfine resolved two-photon transfer into the singlet X[superscript 1]Σ[superscript +]|v = 0,J = 0⟩ ground state, coherently bridging a binding energy difference of 0.65 eV via stimulated rapid adiabatic passage. The spin-polarized, nearly quantum degenerate molecular gas displays a lifetime longer than 2.5 s, highlighting NaK’s stability against two-body chemical reactions. A homogeneous electric field is applied to induce a dipole moment of up to 0.8 D. With these advances, the exploration of many-body physics with strongly dipolar Fermi gases of [superscript 23]Na[superscript 40]K molecules is within experimental reach.