English

Coherent Molecular Deceleration via Vibrational Bichromatic Force

Atomic Physics 2026-05-20 v1

Abstract

We propose a scheme for direct laser deceleration of molecules based on a vibrational transition-mediated bichromatic force (VBCF). By precisely engineering mid-infrared optical fields, we establish coherent absorption-stimulated emission cycles while exploiting the long lifetime of vibrational excited states to suppress spontaneous decay and decoherence, rendering the deceleration process effectively non-dissipative. Unlike schemes based on electronic transitions, our approach completely circumvents the restrictive Franck-Condon factors. Using the fundamental vibrational transition of 13^{13}CO2_2 as a test case, we achieve a deceleration of 1.45×1051.45\times 10^5~m/s2^2 with negligible population loss over the full interaction time. This VBCF framework provides a general route to cold molecules applicable to any species with an allowed fundamental vibrational transition, opening broad prospects in cold chemistry and quantum metrology.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.19626,
  title  = {Coherent Molecular Deceleration via Vibrational Bichromatic Force},
  author = {Meng-Yi Yu and Ya-Nan Lv and Cun-Feng Cheng and Shui-Ming Hu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.19626},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

16 pages, 6 figures, 1 table

R2 v1 2026-07-22T07:21:23.531Z