Formation of RbCs dimers using an elliptically polarized laser pulse

We consider the formation of RbCs by an elliptically polarized laser pulse. By varying the ellipticity of the laser for sufficiently large laser intensity, we see that the formation probability presents a strong dependence, especially around ellipticity 1/ √ 2. We show that the analysis can be reduced to the investigation of the long-range interaction between the two atoms. The formation is mainly due to a small momentum shifts induced by the laser pulse. We analyze these results using the Silberstein's expressions of the polarizabilities, and show that the ellipticity of the field acts as a control knob for the formation probability, allowing significant variations of the dimer formation probability at a fixed laser intensity, especially in the region around an ellipticity of 1/ √ 2.