Abstact:

At the University of Stuttgart we have developed a new kind of setup that combines the physics of ultracold atoms or molecules with a highly spatial resolving ion microscope. This microscope delivers an optical resolution of a few 100nm with a nano-second time resolution. With this it is possible to study their spatial and electronic structure, as well the dynamics of Rydberg atom – ion pairs. We have performed such experiments for bound and unbound atom-ion pairs. As a next step, we want to show that the binding mechanism between ions and Rydberg atoms is not limited to diatomic molecules but can be extended to polyatomic systems, for which we expect even more intricate interactions.