Ultracold Rare-Earth Magnetic Atoms with an Electric Dipole Moment
We propose a new method to produce an electric and magnetic dipolar gas of ultracold dysprosium atoms. The pair of nearly degenerate energy levels of opposite parity, at 17513.33 cm$^{-1}$ with electronic angular momentum $J=10$, and at 17514.50 cm$^{-1}$ with $J=9$, can be mixed with an external electric field, thus inducing an electric dipole moment in the laboratory frame. For field amplitudes relevant to current-day experiments, we predict a magnetic dipole moment up to 13 Bohr magnetons, and an electric dipole moment up to 0.22 Debye, which is similar to the values obtained for alkali-metal diatomics. When a magnetic field is present, we show that the electric dipole moment is strongly…
Purely long-range polar molecules composed of identical lanthanide atoms
International audience; Doubly polar molecules, possessing an electric dipole moment and a magnetic dipole moment, can strongly couple to both an external electric field and a magnetic field, providing unique opportunities to exert full control of the system quantum state at ultracold temperatures. We propose a method for creating a purely long-range doubly polar homonuclear molecule from a pair of strongly magnetic lanthanide atoms, one atom being in its ground level and the other in a superposition of quasi-degenerate opposite-parity excited levels [Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 063201 (2018)]. The electric dipole moment is induced by coupling the excited levels with an external electric field. W…