Emulating Molecular Orbitals and Electronic Dynamics with Ultracold Atoms

18 September 2015

Photo: AG Sengstock

Molecules are the constituents of life and play a dominating role in nature. Even though the molecular structure – the positions of the atoms in the molecule – is often well known, the molecular orbitals of the electrons have only been observed in very few exceptional cases. We propose a method to simulate molecules with well-controllable atoms at ultracold temperatures. In this setting, the ultracold atoms mimic the electrons in a molecule whereas a laser field takes the role of the atomic nuclei. This quantum simulation of molecules allows imaging the molecular orbitals with high resolution. A long-standing dream is also the direct imaging of the electron dynamics within molecules taking place on the femtosecond scale. We show that our "artificial molecules" offer deep insight into this dynamical evolution. Our results pave the way to understand fundamental open questions in molecular physics and test various paradigms of quantum chemistry.

Phys. Rev. X 5, 031016 (2015)

Press coverage:
Science 349, 1298 (2015), CUI (web, print)