Adiabatic potentials of cesium $(nD_J)_2$ Rydberg-Rydberg macrodimers

Abstract

Electrostatic multipole interactions generate long-range Rydberg-Rydberg macrodimer. We calculate the adiabatic potentials of cesium $(nD_{J})_2$ Rydberg macrodimers for principal quantum numbers $n$ ranging from 56 to 62, for $J=3/2$ and $5/2$, and for the allowed values of the conserved sum of the atomic angular-momentum components along the internuclear axis, $M$. For most combinations $(n, M, J)$ exactly one binding potential exists, which should give rise to Rydberg macrodimer states. We study the dependence of the adiabatic potentials on the size of the two-body basis sets used in the calculation, and on the maximal order, $q_{max}$, of the multipole terms included in the calculation. We determine the binding energies and lengths of the binding adiabatic potentials, and investigate their scaling behaviors as a function of the effective principal quantum number; these parameters are relevant to experimental preparation of Rydberg-atom macrodimers. Avoided crossings between adiabatic potentials affect the well shapes and the scaling behaviors differently in two distinct domains in $n$. We discuss an experimental scheme for preparing $(nD_J)_2$ Rydberg-atom macrodimers using two-color double-resonant photoassociation.