English

Trapping and Ground-State Cooling of a Single H$_2^+$

Atomic Physics 2023-10-23 v2 Chemical Physics Quantum Physics

Abstract

We demonstrate co-trapping and sideband cooling of a H2+_2^+ - 9^9Be+^+ ion pair in a cryogenic Paul trap. We study the chemical lifetime of H2+_2^+ and its dependence on the apparatus temperature, achieving lifetimes of up to 113+611^{+6}_{-3} h at 10 K. We demonstrate cooling of two of the modes of translational motion to an average phonon number of 0.07(1) and 0.05(1), corresponding to a temperature of 22(1) μ\muK and 55(3) μ\muK respectively. Our results provide a basis for quantum logic spectroscopy experiments of H2+_2^+, as well as other light ions such as HD+^+, H3+_3^+, and He+^+.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.06456,
  title  = {Trapping and Ground-State Cooling of a Single H$_2^+$},
  author = {N. Schwegler and D. Holzapfel and M. Stadler and A. Mitjans and I. Sergachev and J. P. Home and D. Kienzler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.06456},
  year   = {2023}
}