Experimental study of the b
3
P
1u
and 2
3
P
1g
states of
85
Rb
2
Jinxin Yang
a
, Wei Zhao
a
, Xinhua Pan
b
, Haoming Wei
a
, Jie Ma
c,d
, Ergin H. Ahmed
b
, A. Marjatta Lyyra
b
,
Xingcan Dai
a,
⇑
a
State Key Laboratory for Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics and Center for Atomic and Molecular Nanosciences, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b
Department of Physics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
c
State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, College of Physics and Electronics Engineering, Shanxi University,
Taiyuan 030006, China
d
Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China
article info
Article history:
Received 27 February 2017
In revised form 30 March 2017
Accepted 14 April 2017
Available online 18 April 2017
Keywords:
Rubidium molecules
Triplet states
Spin-orbit splitting
Perturbation
PFIIDR
abstract
Twelve ro-vibrational energy levels of the
85
Rb
2
b
3
P
1u
state have been observed using the Perturbation
Facilitated Infrared-Infrared Double Resonance (PFIIDR) technique for the first time.Using the new
observed levels as intermediate window levels, dozens of transitions into the
85
Rb
2
2
3
P
1g
upper state
ro-vibrational levels have been recorded.Compared with the experimental data of the
85
Rb
2
2
3
P
0g
state,
the average term value difference between the observed
X ¼ 1 and X ¼ 0 components of the
85
Rb
2
2
3
P
g
state levels with the same rotational quantum number, is approximately 83:1 0:3cm
1
. This
proves that the 2
3
P
g
state has a spin-orbit splitting of 83:1 0:3cm
1
, which shows that the 2
3
P
g
state
tends to belong to Hund’s case (a).
Ó 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Rubidium dimer is a molecule which has attracted much atten-
tion due to its use in a wide range of research areas, such as: laser
cooling, cold atom (molecule) collisions, creating and exploring
quantum condensates and coherent control [[1–7] and references
therein]. Some electronic states of Rb
2
such as the ground X
1
R
þ
g
state, the A
1
R
þ
u
and b
3
P
u
intermediate states as well as some other
excited upper states have been reported [8–25]. Recently, Rb
2
2
1
P
g
; 4
1
R
þ
g
; 3
1
R
þ
g
; 2
3
P
0g
upper state energy levels were detected
by the authors using the perturbation facilitated infrared-infrared
double resonance (PFIIDR) technique [26–29]. During the detection
of these states, many intermediate A
1
R
þ
u
=b
3
P
0u
mixed levels were
also confirmed by the experiments.
However, the
X
¼ 1 components of both the b
3
P
u
and 2
3
P
g
states of Rb
2
have never been observed experimentally in spite of
the fact that research of a similar molecule, K
2
, was first conducted
over ten years ago [30,31]. Based on the transition selection rules,
if both b
3
P
0u
and b
3
P
1u
levels are used as the intermediate win-
dow levels, different spin components [
X
¼ 0=
X
¼ 1 for Hund’s
case (a)] of the 2
3
P
g
state can be observed. However, the b
3
P
1u
term energies predicted in Ref. [16] are insufficiently accurate to
be used for PFIIDR work without experimental validation. That is
because the perturbation between the A
1
R
þ
u
state and the
b
3
P
ð0;1Þu
state must be examined in order to obtain the appropriate
window levels. This is complicated further due to the fact that the
A
1
R
þ
u
and b
3
P
1u
mixing is much weaker than that between the
A
1
R
þ
u
and b
3
P
0u
states. In this paper, twelve ro-vibrational energy
levels of the
85
Rb
2
b
3
P
1u
state are observed along with some tran-
sitions into the
85
Rb
2
2
3
P
1g
v
¼ 2; J ¼ 44 47 and
v
¼ 4 7; J ¼ 81 84 ro-vibrational levels.
2. Experiment
Two IRIR double resonance experimental setups have been used
at Tsinghua University and Temple University. These are described
in detail in Ref. [29]. In brief, rubidium vapor was generated in a
four-armed heat pipe oven at 500 K with a 100 Pa argon buffer
gas. At Tsinghua, two Toptica DL100 single-mode cw diode lasers
were used as the pump laser (central wavelength: 895 nm) and
the probe laser (central wavelength: 1050 nm). While at Temple,
a Ti:Sapphire laser (Coherent 899-29)) and probe diode laser (cen-
tral wavelength: 1200 nm) were employed. The pump laser selec-
tively excited an A
1
R
þ
u
=b
3
P
u
mixed intermediate level. The two
lasers were counter-propagating and overlapping at the center of
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jms.2017.04.011
0022-2852/Ó 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
⇑
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: XingcanDai@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (X. Dai).
Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy 336 (2017) 36–41
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jms