Cesium Ultra-Long-Range Rydberg Molecules and Many-Body Physics

Ultra-long-range Rydberg molecules have received increasing interest recently because of their novel properties such as the ability to serve as an electron trap, the potential to possess kilo-Debye dipole moments, and their unique binding mechanism. Recently, experiments focusing on Rydberg P-state and D-state molecules have revealed interesting new features of these novel molecules, like coupling between singlet and triplet scattering channels, p-wave scattering dominated states and their behavior in magnetic fields. In this presentation, we report our recent observation of Cesium D-state ultra-long-range Rydberg molecules and compare our observations to theoretical calculations. We also report our preliminary data on ``polymer'' molecules, which are formed by one Cs Rydberg atom but more than one Cs ground state atom. The transition from a few-body system to a many-body system can provide insight into many-body physics.