Observation of a rotational transition in trapped and sympathetically cooled molecular ions
Quantum Physics
2013-11-05 v1 Atomic Physics
Abstract
We demonstrate rotational excitation of molecular ions that are sympathetically cooled by laser-cooled atomic ions to a temperature as low as ca. 10 mK. The molecular hydrogen ions HD+ and the fundamental rotational transition at 1.3 THz, the most fundamental dipole-allowed rotational transition of any molecule, are used as a test case. This transition is here observed for the first time directly. Rotational laser cooling was employed in order to increase the signal, and resonance-enhanced multiphoton dissociation was used as detection method. The black-body-radiation-induced rotational excitation is also observed. The extension of the method to other molecular species is briefly discussed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1202.5672,
title = {Observation of a rotational transition in trapped and sympathetically cooled molecular ions},
author = {J. Shen and A. Borodin and M. Hansen and S. Schiller},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1202.5672},
year = {2013}
}