Photoassociation spectroscopy of ultracold Yb 173 atoms near the intercombination line

Abstract

We report on photoassociation (PA) spectroscopy of a degenerate Fermi gas of Yb173 atoms near the dissociation limit of the spin-forbidden S01-P13 intercombination transition. An atom-loss spectrum is measured from a trapped sample for a spectral range down to -1 GHz with respect to the f=5/2→f′=7/2 atomic resonance. The spectrum shows 80 PA resonances, revealing the high nuclear spin nature of the system. To obtain additional information on the excited molecular states, we investigate the Zeeman effect on the spectrum near a detuning of -0.8 GHz and examine the quantum numbers of the Zeeman levels using various two-component spin mixture samples. Finally, we measure the atom-loss rate under PA light for several pronounced PA resonances. © 2018 American Physical Society