Photoassociation of Ultracold NaLi

Graphical abstract: Photoassociation of ultracold NaLi

Timur M. Rvachov, Hyungmok Son, Juliana J. Park, Pascal M. Notz, Tout T. Wang, Martin W. Zwierlein, Wolfgang Ketterle, Alan O. Jamison

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2018,20, 4746-4751 (2018)

We perform photoassociation spectroscopy in an ultracold 23Na-6Li mixture to study the c3Σ+ excited triplet molecular potential. We observe 50 vibrational states and their substructure to an accuracy of 20 MHz, and provide line strength data from photoassociation loss measurements. An analysis of the vibrational line positions using near-dissociation expansions and a full potential fit is presented. This is the first observation of the c3Σ+ potential, as well as photoassociation in the NaLi system.