Related papers: Optical pumping and vibrational cooling of molecul…
We consider ultracold atoms in a far detuned optical lattice orientated across a high-Q optical resonator. Applying an external driving laser to the atoms, which is red detuned from the cavity mode by one vibrational quantum, induces…
We experimentally demonstrate a variation on a Sisyphus cooling technique that was proposed for cooling antihydrogen. In our implementation, atoms are selectively excited to an electronic state whose energy is spatially modulated by an…
The observation of dark-resonances in the two-electron atom barium and their influence on optical cooling is reported. In heavy alkali earth atoms, i.e. barium or radium, optical cooling can be achieved using n^1S_0-n^1P_1 transitions and…
We propose a new method to obtain a squeezed matter field of atomic vibrations by use of an optical lattice, and the laser pulse technique of Garrett et al used for acoustic phonons [1]. We show that it is possible to reduce the variance of…
Laser-cooled gases of atoms interacting with the field of an optical cavity are a powerful tool for quantum sensing and the simulation of open and closed quantum systems. They can display spontaneous self-organisation phase transitions,…
We provide a theory of the deflection of polar and non-polar rotating molecules by inhomogeneous static electric field. Rainbow-like features in the angular distribution of the scattered molecules are analyzed in detail. Furthermore, we…
We present an all-optical method for efficiently preparing cold atoms in a desired Zeeman state, either on the magnetically insensitive clock state (m_F=0) or a particular state suitable for processing or storing quantum information. By…
Fast and efficient state preparation of molecules can be accomplished by optical pumping. Molecular structure that most obviously facilitates cycling involves a strong electronic transition, with favorable vibrational branching (diagonal…
Photoassociation of ultracold atoms is shown to lead to alignment of the product molecules along the excitation laser polarization axis. We theoretically investigate pulsed photoassociation of $^{87}Rb$ atoms into a specific weakly-bound…
It has been roughly three decades since laser cooling techniques produced ultracold atoms, leading to rapid advances in a vast array of fields. Unfortunately laser cooling has not yet been extended to molecules because of their complex…
Dissipative Kerr solitons have recently been generated in optical microresonators, enabling ultrashort optical pulses at microwave repetition rates, that constitute coherent and numerically predictable Kerr frequency combs. However, the…
Continuous wave (CW) lasers are the enabling technology for producing ultracold atoms and molecules through laser cooling and trapping. The resulting pristine samples of slow moving particles are the de facto starting point for both…
Optical pumping by blackbody radiation is a feature shared by all polar molecules and fundamentally limits the time that these molecules can be kept in a single quantum state in a trap. To demonstrate and quantify this, we have monitored…
We study laser cooling of $^{24}$Mg atoms in dipole optical trap with pumping field resonant to narrow $(3s3s)\,^1S_0 \rightarrow \, (3s3p)\,^{3}P_1$ ($\lambda = 457$ nm) optical transition. For description of laser cooling of atoms in the…
We demonstrate the formation of a single RbCs molecule during the merging of two optical tweezers, one containing a single Rb atom and the other a single Cs atom. Both atoms are initially predominantly in the motional ground states of their…
We present a formalism to study molecular polaritons based on the bosonization of molecular vibronic states. This formalism accommodates an arbitrary number of molecules $N$, excitations and internal vibronic structures, making it ideal for…
Molecules are ubiquitous in natural phenomena and man-made products, but their use in quantum optical applications has been hampered by incoherent internal vibrations and other phononic interactions with their environment. We have now…
We propose a new laser cooling method for atomic species whose level structure makes traditional laser cooling difficult. For instance, laser cooling of hydrogen requires single-frequency vacuum-ultraviolet light, while multielectron atoms…
Laser cooling to sub-Doppler temperatures by optical molasses is thought to be inhibited in atoms with unresolved, near-degenerate hyperfine structure in the excited state. We demonstrate that such cooling is possible in one to three…
We propose a novel Sisyphus cooling scheme for atoms confined in a far off resonance optical dipole trap. Utilizing the differential trap-induced AC Stark shift, two electronic levels of the atom are resonantly coupled by a cooling laser…