Continuous Loading of Ultracold Ground-State ^{85}Rb_{2} Molecules in a Dipole Trap Using a Single Light Beam.

We have developed an approach to continuously load ultracold ^{85}Rb_{2} vibrational ground-state molecules into a crossed optical dipole trap from a magneto-optical trap. The technique relies on a single high-power light beam with a broad spectrum superimposed onto a narrow peak at an energy of about 9400  cm^{-1}. This single laser source performs all the required steps: the short-range photoassociation creating ground-state molecules after radiative emission, the cooling of the molecular vibrational population down to the lowest vibrational level v_{X}=0, and the optical trapping of these molecules.

Coherent multidimensional spectroscopy of dilute gas-phase nanosystems.

Two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2DES) is one of the most powerful spectroscopic techniques with unique sensitivity to couplings, coherence properties and real-time dynamics of a quantum system. While successfully applied to a variety of condensed phase samples, high precision experiments on isolated systems in the gas phase have been so far precluded by insufficient sensitivity. However, such experiments are essential for a precise understanding of fundamental mechanisms and to avoid misinterpretations.

Creation of an Ultracold Gas of Ground-State Dipolar ^{23}Na^{87}Rb Molecules.

We report the successful production of an ultracold sample of absolute ground-state ^{23}Na^{87}Rb molecules. Starting from weakly bound Feshbach molecules formed via magnetoassociation, the lowest rovibrational and hyperfine level of the electronic ground state is populated following a high-efficiency and high-resolution two-photon Raman process. The high-purity absolute ground-state samples have up to 8000 molecules and densities of over 10^{11}  cm^{-3}.

Satellite bands of the RbCs molecule in the range of highly excited states.

We report on the observation of three RbCs satellite bands in the blue and green ranges of the visible spectrum. Absorption measurements are performed using all-sapphire cell filled with a mixture of Rb and Cs. We compare high resolution absorption spectrum of Rb-Cs vapor mixture with pure Rb and Cs vapor spectra from the literature.

Light-assisted ion-neutral reactive processes in the cold regime: radiative molecule formation versus charge exchange.

We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of cold reactive collisions between laser-cooled Ca+ ions and Rb atoms in an ion-atom hybrid trap. We observe rich chemical dynamics which are interpreted in terms of nonadiabatic and radiative charge exchange as well as radiative molecule formation using high-level electronic structure calculations. We study the role of light-assisted processes and show that the efficiency of the dominant chemical pathways is considerably enhanced in excited reaction channels.