Theoretical study of MgNa+ ionic system: potential energy curve, vibrational levels, dipole moments, radiative lifetimes and laser-cooling analysis

Abstract

An extensive ab-initio quantum chemistry study and a discussion of the possible laser cooling and formation of the heteronuclear ionic MgNa+ molecule is presented in this paper. Our work is based on the use of non–empirical pseudo-potentials for the Mg2+ and Na+ cores, large Gaussian basis sets, parametrized l–dependent polarization potentials, and full valence configuration interaction calculations. We present here adiabatic potential energy curves of the ground and 44 low-lying excited electronic states of 1,3Σ+, 1,3Π, 1,3Δ symmetries, and their spectroscopic parameters (Re, De, Te, ωe, ωexe, and Be). Furthermore, numerous ionic – neutral avoided crossings, specially between higher adjacent electronic states of 1,3Σ+, 1,3Π symmetries, are identified and interpreted. The energy separations between these avoided crossings are also calculated. The electric dipole moment curves have been computed for a wide range of inter-nuclear distances. The vibrational energies are obtained by solving the nuclear Schrodinger equation, using the calculated potential energy curves. Thereafter, spontaneous and black-body radiation induced transition rates are calculated to obtain the ground and excited states vibrational level lifetimes. It has been observed that the lifetimes of the ground state vibrational levels are of the order of a second, while those of the excited states, mainly the 21Σ+ state, have the order of a nanosecond.