Towards Photoassociation in 87RB BEC with raman light-induced synthetic gauge fields

We present our experimental studies of photoassociation in 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) both without and with the presence of Raman light-induced gauge fields. These gauge fields couple the three bare m\textunderscore f spins in the F$=$1 manifold of 87Rb, with the new eigenstates being superpositions of the bare m\textunderscore f states. Some photoassociation channels are allowed or forbidden depending the m\textunderscore f spin of the colliding atoms. We will report the progress in our measurements, with the goal of investigating the role of synthetic gauge fields on the photoassociation process.