Photoassociation spectroscopy of ultracold metastable 3He dimers.

The bound states of the fermionic (3)He(2 (3)S(1)) + (3)He(2 (3)P(j)) system, where j = 0, 1, 2, are investigated using the recently available ab initio short-range (1,3,5)Σ(+)(g,u) and (1,3,5)Π(g,u) potentials computed by Deguilhem et al. (J. Phys. B: At., Mol. Opt. Phys., 2009, 42, 015102). Single-channel and multichannel calculations have been undertaken in order to investigate the effects of Coriolis and non-adiabatic couplings. The possible experimental observability of the theoretical levels is assessed using criteria based upon the short-range character of each level and their coupling to metastable ground states. Purely long-range levels have been identified and 30 short-range levels near five asymptotes are suggested for experimental investigation.