Electronic Structure and Laser-Cooling Prospects of the AlCd Molecule: A Theoretical Study Including Spin-Orbit Coupling.

Ab initio CASSCF/(MRCI + Q) calculations were employed to investigate the electronic structure of the AlCd molecule. The adiabatic potential energy curves of the low-lying doublet and quartet electronic states of AlCd were computed in both the 2S+1Λ(+/-) and Ω representations. The spectroscopic parameters T e, R e, ωe, B e, the dipole moment μe, and the dissociation energy D e were determined for the bound states of the molecule. Several new electronic states were characterized here for the first time. Rovibrational analysis of the ground and low-lying excited states was carried out using the canonical functions method to obtain the constants B v, D v, E v, R min, and R max. To assess the potential of AlCd for direct laser cooling, Franck-Condon factors were determined between the ground and low-lying excited states.