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Microwave shielding of ultracold polar molecules

Atomic Physics 2018-10-24 v2 Quantum Physics

Abstract

We use microwaves to engineer repulsive long-range interactions between ultracold polar molecules. The resulting shielding suppresses various loss mechanisms and provides large elastic cross sections. Hyperfine interactions limit the shielding under realistic conditions, but a magnetic field allows suppression of the losses to below 10-14 cm3 s-1. The mechanism and optimum conditions for shielding differ substantially from those proposed by Gorshkov et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 073201 (2008)], and do not require cancelation of the long-range dipole-dipole interaction that is vital to many applications.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1806.03608,
  title  = {Microwave shielding of ultracold polar molecules},
  author = {Tijs Karman and Jeremy M. Hutson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.03608},
  year   = {2018}
}