Mixing of 0+ and 0- observed in hyperfine and Zeeman structure of ultracold Rb2 molecules
Abstract
We study the combination of hyperfine and Zeeman structure in the spin-orbit coupled A1u+-b3u complex of 87Rb2. For this purpose, absorption spectroscopy at a magnetic field around B=1000\:G is carried out. We drive optical dipole transitions from the lowest rotational state of an ultracold Feshbach molecule to various vibrational levels with 0+ symmetry of the A-b complex. In contrast to previous measurements with rotationally excited alkali-dimers, we do not observe equal spacings of the hyperfine levels. In addition, the spectra vary substantially for different vibrational quantum numbers, and exhibit large splittings of up to 160\:MHz, unexpected for 0+ states. The level structure is explained to be a result of the repulsion between the states 0+ and 0- of b3u, coupled via hyperfine and Zeeman interactions. In general, 0- and 0+ have a spin-orbit induced energy spacing , that is different for the individual vibrational states. From each measured spectrum we are able to extract , which otherwise is not easily accessible in conventional spectroscopy schemes. We obtain values of in the range of 100\:GHz which can be described by coupled channel calculations if a spin-orbit coupling is introduced that is different for 0- and 0+ of b3u.
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