Photoassociation of Ultracold CsYb Molecules and Determination of Interspecies Scattering Lengths (Repost)

This thesis reports the first measurements of the ground state binding energies of ultracold CsYb molecules and the scattering lengths of the Cs+Yb system. CsYb molecules in the rovibrational ground state possess both electric and magnetic dipole moments which opens up many exciting research directions in ultracold chemistry and quantum many-body physics.
The thesis describes the construction of a complex Cs-Yb mixture apparatus and the development of experimental protocols to produce an ultracold mixture of Cs and Yb atoms and to associate these atoms into ultracold CsYb molecules using the photoassociation technique. Furthermore, the author details the experimental techniques used to produce quantum degenerate gases of Cs and Yb.
Finally, using techniques of one- and two-photon photoassociation spectroscopy, the first study of the properties of ultracold CsYb molecules is performed and presented. From these spectroscopic studies many critical parameters are extracted such as the interspecies scattering lengths of the mixture and the magnetic field values of Feshbach resonances. This work is a critical step towards the production of CsYb molecules in the rovibrational ground state and lays the foundation for further studies in the burgeoning field of ultracold open-shell polar molecules.