Theoretical model for ultracold molecule formation via adaptive feedback control

Ulrich Poschinger*, Wenzel Salzmann, Roland Wester, Matthias Weidemüller, Christiane P. Koch, Ronnie Kosloff

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

We theoretically investigate pump-dump photoassociation of ultracold molecules with amplitude- and phase-modulated femtosecond laser pulses. For this purpose, a perturbative model for light-matter interaction is developed and combined with a genetic algorithm for adaptive feedback control of the laser pulse shapes. The model is applied to the formation of 85Rb 2 molecules in a magneto-optical trap. We find that optimized pulse shapes may maximize the formation of ground state molecules in a specific vibrational state at a pump-dump delay time for which unshaped pulses lead to a minimum of the formation rate. Compared to the maximum formation rate obtained for unshaped pulses at the optimum pump-dump delay, the optimized pulses lead to a significant improvement of about 40% for the target level population. Since our model yields the spectral amplitudes and phases of the optimized pulses, the results are directly applicable in pulse shaping experiments.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberS14
Pages (from-to)S1001-S1015
JournalJournal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
Volume39
Issue number19
DOIs
StatePublished - 14 Oct 2006

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