Heteronuclear long-range Rydberg molecules

Abstract: We present the formation of homonuclear Cs2, K2, and heteronuclear CsK long-range Rydberg molecules in a dual-species magneto-optical trap for 39K and 133Cs by one-photon UV photoassociation. The different ground-state-density dependence of homo- and heteronuclear photoassociation rates and the detection of stable molecular ions resulting from auto-ionization provide an unambiguous assignment. We perform bound-bound millimeter-wave spectroscopy of long-range Rydberg molecules to access molecular states not accessible by one-photon photoassociation. Calculations based on the most recent theoretical model and atomic parameters do not reproduce the full set of data from homo- and heteronuclear long-range Rydberg molecules consistently. This shows that photoassociation and millimeter-wave spectroscopy of heteronuclear long-range Rydberg molecules provide a benchmark for the development of theoretical models.