Determining a vibrational distribution with a broadband optical source.

This work presents an experimental protocol conceived to determine the vibrational distribution of barium monofluoride molecules seeded in a supersonic beam of argon. Here, as in many cases, the detection signal is related to the number of molecules by an efficiency involving several parameters that may be difficult to determine properly. In particular, this efficiency depends on the vibrational level of the detected molecules.

Landau-Zener transitions in frozen pairs of Rydberg atoms.

We have induced adiabatic transitions in pairs of frozen Rydberg sodium atoms of a supersonic beam. The diatomic ns+ns-->np+(n-1)p transition takes place in a time-dependent electric field and originates from the adiabatic change of the internal state of the pair induced by the dipole-dipole interaction. This is experimentally achieved by sweeping an electric field across the energy degeneracy ns ns-np(n-1)p.