Impact of electric fields on highly excited rovibrational states of polar dimers

Abstract

We study the effect of a strong static homogeneous electric field on the highly excited rovibrational levels of the 7Li133Cs dimer in its electronic ground state. Our full rovibrational investigation of the system includes the interaction with the field due to the permanent electric dipole moment and the polarizability of the molecule. We explore the evolution of the states next to the dissociation threshold as the field strength is increased. The rotational and vibrational dynamics are influenced by the field; effects such as orientation, angular motion hybridization and squeezing of the vibrational motion are demonstrated and analyzed. The field also induces avoided crossings causing a strong mixing of the electrically dressed rovibrational states. Importantly, we show how some of these highly excited levels can be shifted to the continuum as the field strength is increased, and conversely how two atoms in the continuum can be brought into a bound state by lowering the electric field strength.