Seconds-Scale Coherence on Nuclear Spin Transitions of Ultracold Polar Molecules in 3D Optical Lattices.

Abstract

Ultracold polar molecules (UPMs) are emerging as a novel and powerful platform for fundamental applications in quantum science. Here, we report characterization of the coherence between nuclear spin levels of ultracold ground-state sodium-rubidium molecules loaded into a 3D optical lattice with a nearly photon scattering limited trapping lifetime of 9(1)seconds. After identifying and compensating the main sources of decoherence, we achieve a maximum nuclear spin coherence time of T_{2}^{*}=3.3(6)  s with two-photon Ramsey spectroscopy. Furthermore, based on the understanding of the main factor limiting the coherence of the two-photon Rabi transition, we obtain a Rabi line shape with linewidth below 0.8Hz. The simultaneous realization of long lifetime and coherence time, and ultrahigh spectroscopic resolution in our system unveils the great potentials of Ultracold polar molecules in quantum simulation, computation, and metrology.