Rotational and rotationless states of weakly-bound molecules

Abstract

By making use of the quantization rule of Raab and Friedrich [P. Raab and H. Friedrich, Phys. Rev. A 78, 022707 (2008)], we derive simple and accurate formulae for the number of rotational states supported by a weakly-bound vibrational level of a diatomic molecule and the rotational constants of any such levels up to the threshold, and provide a criterion for determining whether a given weakly-bound vibrational level is rotationless. The results depend solely on the long-range part of the molecular potential and are applicable to halo molecules.