Homo- and heteronuclear alkali metal trimers formed on helium nanodroplets. Part II. Femtosecond spectroscopy and spectra assignments

Abstract

Homo- and heteronuclear alkali quartet trimers of type K_3−nRb_n (n = 0,1,2,3) formed on helium nanodroplets are probed by one-color femtosecond (fs) photoionization (PI) spectroscopy. The obtained frequencies are assigned to vibrations in different electronic states in comparison to high level ab initio calculations of the involved potentials including pronounced Jahn–Teller and spin–orbit couplings. Despite the fact that the resulting complex vibronic structure of the heavy alkali molecules complicates the comparison of experiment and theory we find good agreement for many of the observed lines for all species.