Giant polyatomic molecules: Creating Rydber's cat

Seth Rittenhouse

ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, USA

We predict a class of long-range Rydberg molecules consisting of a Rydberg atom and a tightly bound polar molecule. Long-range Born-Oppenheimer potentials that describe the interaction in these molecules are presented. These potentials fall into two classes which produce different polarization directions of the dipolar molecule with respect to the positively charged Rydberg core. The large overall dipole moment of the Rydberg atom-dipole system may allow for control of molecular polarization using relatively small electric fields. An on-resonance Raman transition which couples the internal molecular configurations is proposed.

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