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Since their first experimental observation, ultralong-range Rydberg moleculesconsisting of a highly excited Rydberg atom and a ground state atom haveattracted the interest in the field of ultracold chemistry. Especially theintriguing properties like size, polarizability and type of binding theyinherit from the Rydberg atom are of interest. An open question in the field isthe reduced lifetime of the molecules compared to the corresponding atomicRydberg states. In this letter we present an experimental study on thelifetimes of the ^3\Sigma (5s-35s) molecule in its vibrational ground state andin an excited state. We show that the lifetimes depends on the density ofground state atoms and that this can be described in the frame of a classicalscattering between the molecules and ground state atoms. We also find that theexcited molecular state has an even more reduced lifetime compared to theground state which can be attributed to an inward penetration of the boundatomic pair due to imperfect quantum reflection that takes place in the specialshape of the molecular potential.

Lifetimes of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules in vibrational ground and excited state