Ultracold long-range Van der Waals Rydberg trimers

Ultracold Rydberg atoms and dipolar molecules are groundbreaking tools for advancing quantum information protocols [1] and exploring novel quantum phases [2] due to their large dipole moments and long-range interactions [3]. This work demonstrates the potential to create ultracold, long-range Van der Waals Rydberg trimers within a cold Rydberg- molecule hybrid system. Our approach uses a two-photon association scheme that drives atom-diatom collisions into bound Rydberg-diatom states, with estimated photoassociation rates between 10-13 and 10-11 cm3 s-1 and binding energies ranging from 10-2 to 102 μK. The resulting Van de Waals trimer has lengths of thousands of Bohr radius. This opens the possibility of investigating new quantum complexes in ultracold regimes within current experimental achievements [4].

[1] Browaeys, A. & Lahaye, T. Many-body physics with individually controlled Rydberg atoms. Nat. Phys. 16, 132–142 (2020).

[2] Karman, T., Tomza, M. & Pérez-Ríos, J. Ultracold chemistry as a testbed for few-body physics. Nat. Phys. 20, 722–729 (2024).

[3] Olaya, V., Pérez-Ríos, J. & Herrera, F. C6 coefficients for interacting rydberg atoms and alkali-metal dimers. Phys. Rev. A 101, 032705 (2020)

[4] Bigagli, N. et al. Collisionally stable gas of bosonic dipolar ground-state molecules. Nat. Phys. 19, 1579–1584, (2023).