Thermal-average effects on photoassociation with a slowly-turned-on and rapidly-turned-off laser pulse

We investigate theoretically the photoassociation (PA) of two Cs atoms using a slowly-turned-on and rapidly-turned-off (STRT) laser pulse at the temperature of 54 mu K by taking the thermal average of the initial continuum states into account. For comparison, the PA probabilities under the action of the STRT and typical Gauss-type pulses are calculated, respectively. The rising and falling times of the STRT pulse are set to be tau(r) = 10 ps and tau(f) = 0.2 ps, and the two Gauss-type pulses are set to be tr = tf = 10 ps and tr = tf = 5.1 ps, respectively. Compared to the calculation considering a single initial continuum state (non-thermal-average calculations), the PA probabilities with the consideration of the thermal average are reduced to different extents according to different laser pulses. The PA process induced by the STRT pulse is more robust than that by the two Gauss-type pulses. For the STRT pulse, the PA probability is reduced by roughly 30%, while for the two Gauss-type pulses, it is reduced by roughly 97% and 64%, respectively. Because of the larger bandwidth and the asymmetric time profile of the STRT pulse, the PA probability induced by this pulse is related to both the off-resonant and the near-resonant transitions in a much broader phase space formed by the initial continuum states and the final vibrational states. Consequently, the thermal average of the initial continuum states has relatively smaller influence on the PA probability induced by the STRT pulse. By changing the pulse shape of the standard Gaussian to the sin(2) and the Lorentz ones, the STRT pulse still results in the highest PA probability and is the most robust to the thermal average.