Related papers: Collisions between cold molecules in a superconduc…
Ultracold molecules undergo "sticky collisions" that result in loss even for chemically nonreactive molecules. Sticking times can be enhanced by orders of magnitude by interactions that lead to non-conservation of nuclear spin or total…
Quantum degenerate cold-atom gases provide a remarkable opportunity to study strongly interacting systems. Recent experimental progress in producing ultracold polar molecules with a net electric dipole moment opens up new possibilities to…
We report on trapping of fermionic 40K atoms in a red-detuned standing-wave optical trap, loaded from a magneto-optical trap. Typically, 10^6 atoms are loaded at a density of 10^12 cm^-3 and a temperature of 65 microK, and trapped for more…
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…
Polar molecules in superpositions of rotational states exhibit long-range dipolar interactions, but maintaining their coherence in a trapped sample is a challenge. We present calculations that show many laser-coolable molecules have…
Ion-atom interactions are a comparatively recent field of research that has drawn considerable attention due to its applications in areas including quantum chemistry and quantum simulations. In first experiments, atomic ions and neutral…
An optical microtrap is realized on a dielectric surface by crossing a tightly focused laser beam with an horizontal evanescent-wave atom mirror. The nondissipative trap is loaded with $\sim$$10^5$ cesium atoms through elastic collisions…
Collisional complexes, which are formed as intermediate states in molecular collisions, are typically short-lived and decay within picoseconds. However, in ultracold collisions involving bialkali molecules, complexes can live for…
Whereas collisions between atoms and molecules are largely understood, collisions between two molecules have proven much harder to study. In both experiment and theory, our ability to determine quantum state-resolved bimolecular cross…
We propose a method for laser cooling and trapping a substantial class of polar molecules, and in particular titanium (II) oxide (TiO). This method uses pulsed electric fields to nonadiabatically remix the ground-state magnetic sublevels of…
Ultracold molecules represent a fascinating research frontier in physics and chemistry, but it has proven challenging to prepare dense samples at low velocities. Here we present a solution to this goal by a non-conventional approach dubbed…
We reported a detailed experimental study of the cold collision of Barium monofluoride (BaF) with buffer gas and the high-resolution spectroscopy relevant with direct laser cooling. BaF molecules are efficiently produced with laser ablation…
We simultaneously trap ultracold lithium and cesium atoms in an optical dipole trap formed by the focus of a CO$_2$ laser and study the exchange of thermal energy between the gases. The cesium gas, which is optically cooled to $20 \mu$K,…
This paper reviews recent advances in the study of strongly interacting systems of dipolar molecules. Heteronuclear molecules feature large and tunable electric dipole moments, which give rise to long-range and anisotropic dipole-dipole…
Atomic quantum gases in the strong-correlation regime offer unique possibilities to explore a variety of many-body quantum phenomena. Reaching this regime has usually required both strong elastic and weak inelastic interactions, as the…
The prospects of sympathetic cooling of polar molecules with magnetically co-trapped alkali-metal atoms are generally considered poor due to strongly anisotropic atom-molecule interactions leading to large spin relaxation rates. Using…
Engineered ultracold atomic systems are a valuable platform for fundamental quantum mechanics studies and the development of quantum technologies. At near zero absolute temperature, atoms exhibit macroscopic phase coherence and collective…
Calcium monofluoride (CaF) molecules are loaded into an optical dipole trap (ODT) and subsequently laser cooled within the trap. Starting with magneto-optical trapping, we sub-Doppler cool CaF and then load $150(30)$ CaF molecules into an…
We investigate collisions of polar molecules in quasi-2D traps in the presence of an external electric field perpendicular to the collision plane. We use the quantum-defect model characterized by two dimensionless parameters: $y$ and $s$.…
Efficient cooling of trapped charged particles is essential to many fundamental physics experiments, to high-precision metrology, and to quantum technology. Until now, sympathetic cooling has required close-range Coulomb interactions, but…