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Phys. Rev. A 65, 023401 (2002) [4 pages]

Subthermal linewidths in photoassociation spectra of cold alkaline-earth-metal atoms

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Mette Machholm
Department of Computational Science, The National University of Singapore, 119260, Singapore

Paul S. Julienne
National Institute for Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8423, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-8423

Kalle-Antti Suominen
Department of Applied Physics, University of Turku, FIN-20014 Turun yliopisto, Finland
Helsinki Institute of Physics, PL 64, FIN-00014 Helsingin yliopisto, Finland

Received 20 July 2001; published 3 January 2002

Narrow s-wave features with subthermal widths are predicted for the 1Πg photoassociation spectra of cold alkaline-earth-metal atoms. The phenomenon is explained by numerical and analytical calculations. These show that only a small subthermal range of collision energies near threshold contributes to the s-wave features that are excited when the atoms are very far apart. The resonances survive thermal averaging, and may be detectable for Ca cooled near the Doppler cooling temperature of the 41P←41S laser-cooling transition.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.65.023401
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.65.023401
PACS:
34.50.Rk, 34.10.+x, 32.80.Pj
 
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