The research involves two, complementary aspects of the interactions of ultracold excited atoms; the formation of weakly bound molecular states formed from highly excited Rydberg atoms and the collisional process that may destroy them, such as three-body recombination. The first part of the work exploits the group properties of these systems and relies heavily on quantum defect theory to provide some semi-analytic results. The research on recombination employs modifications of echniques that were pioneered by the PI many years ago in the context of gas discharge physics.
