Related papers: Optical pulse-shaping for internal cooling of mole…
We propose and analyze a scheme for sympathetic cooling of the translational motion of polar molecules in an optical lattice, interacting one by one with laser-cooled ions in a radio-frequency trap. The energy gap between the excitation…
We propose an alternative method to laser cooling. Our approach utilizes the extreme brightness of a supersonic atomic beam, and the adiabatic atomic coilgun to slow atoms in the beam or to bring them to rest. We show how internal-state…
Sympathetic cooling of molecular ions through the Coulomb interaction with laser-cooled atomic ions is an efficient tool to prepare translationally cold molecules without, ideally, affecting the internal state of the molecular ions.…
Ultracold molecular gases are promising as an avenue to rich many-body physics, quantum chemistry, quantum information, and precision measurements. This richness, which flows from the complex internal structure of molecules, makes the…
Molecular laser cooling and trapping requires addressing all spontaneous decays to excited vibrational states that occur at the $\gtrsim 10^{-4} - 10^{-5}$ level, which is accomplished by driving repumping transitions out of these states.…
For experiments that require a quantum system to be in the ultra-cold regime, laser cooling is an essential tool. While techniques for laser cooling ions and neutral atoms have been refined and temperatures below the Doppler limit have been…
We propose and computationally study a method for simultaneously orienting the angular momentum of asymmetric top molecules along: 1) a laboratory-fixed direction; 2) the molecular intermediate moment of inertia axis; 3) the laser field…
We present a method to design a finite decay rate for excited rotational states in polar molecules. The setup is based on a hybrid system of polar molecules with atoms driven into a Rydberg state. The atoms and molecules are coupled via the…
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 $(v=0,\,…
We demonstrate broadband laser cooling of atomic ions in an rf trap using ultrafast pulses from a modelocked laser. The temperature of a single ion is measured by observing the size of a time-averaged image of the ion in the known harmonic…
Analogous to the extension of laser cooling techniques from two-level to three-level atoms, Doppler cooling of molecules with an intermediate electronic state is considered. In particular, we use a rate-equation approach to simulate cooling…
We present a new method for the generation of rotationally and vibrationally state-selected, translationally cold molecular ions in ion traps. Our technique is based on the state-selective threshold photoionization of neutral molecules…
Recent theoretical investigations have indicated that rapid optical cycling should be feasible in complex polyatomic molecules with diverse constituents, geometries and symmetries. However, as a composite molecular mass grows, so does the…
We demonstrate the production of ultracold polar RbCs molecules in their vibronic ground state, via photoassociation of laser-cooled atoms followed by a laser-stimulated state transfer process. The resulting sample of $X ^1\Sigma^+ (v=0)$…
We show that circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulses produce field-free alignment in linear and planar molecules. We study the rotational wavepacket evolution of O$_2$ and benzene created by circularly polarized light. For benzene, we…
In this work we investigate the theory for three different uni-directional population transfer schemes in trapped multilevel systems which can be utilized to cool molecular ions. The approach we use exploits the laser-induced coupling…
Advances of quantum control technology have led to nearly perfect single-qubit control of nuclear spins and atomic hyperfine ground states. In contrast, quantum control of strong optical transitions, even for free atoms, are far from being…
Molecules have vibrational, rotational, spin-orbit and hyperfine degrees of freedom or quantum states, each of which responds in a unique fashion to external electromagnetic radiation. The control over superpositions of these quantum states…
We theoretically and computationally investigate the cooling of antihydrogen, $\bar{H}$, using optical molasses cooling. This updates the results in Ref. [1] to the current capabilities of the ALPHA experiment. Through Monte Carlo…
Cavity cooling of an atom works best on a cyclic optical transition in the strong coupling regime near resonance, where small cavity photon numbers suffice for trapping and cooling. Due to the absence of closed transitions a straightforward…