Robust, fast, and efficient formation of stable tetratomic molecules from ultracold atoms via generalized stimulated Raman exact passage

Abstract

The study of the conversion of ultracold atoms into molecules has long remained a hot topic in atomic, molecular, and optical physics. However, most prior research has focused on diatomic molecules, with relatively scarce exploration of polyatomic molecules. Here we propose a two-step strategy for the formation of stable ultracold tetratomic molecules. We first suggest a generalized nonlinear stimulated Raman exact passage (STIREP) technique for the coherent conversion of ultracold atoms to tetratomic molecules, which is subsequently followed by a chainwise-STIREP technique to transfer the resulting molecules into a sufficiently stable ground state. Through systematic numerical analysis, we demonstrate that the proposed two-step strategy holds great potential for the robust, fast, and efficient formation of stable ultracold tetratomic molecules.