Photoassociation of atom-molecule pair and quantum Zeno based detection of a molecule*

Ultracold collisions of neutral atoms and molecules have been of great interest since it became possible by advances in experimental techniques for cooling and trapping such species. We present an extensive theoretical study for low energy collision between an alkali atom and a diatomic molecule. The long-range interaction between the two species is investigated including the atomic spin-orbit and hyperfine splitting. Photoassociation (PA) rate of an atom and a dimer is calculated for different alkali atoms, namely Na, and Cs. Furthermore, we present a method to detect the formation of diatomic molecules in a tweezer. The atom-molecule interaction, relevant to PA, can be used to suppress tunneling of the molecule from the tweezer by utilizing the quantum Zeno effect. The laser-assisted process for detection enhances the decay rate significantly and therefore increases the detection efficiency.