Related papers: Blackbody thermalization and vibrational lifetimes…
In the perspective of the outstanding developments of high-precision measurements of fundamental constants using polar molecules related to ultimate checks of fundamental theories, we investigate the possibly counterproductive role of…
The translational motion of molecular ions can be effectively cooled sympathetically to temperatures below 100 mK in ion traps through Coulomb interactions with laser-cooled atomic ions. The distribution of internal rovibrational states,…
We demonstrate the measurement and manipulation of the temperature of cold CO molecules in a microchip environment. Through the use of time-resolved spatial imaging, we are able to observe the phase-space distribution of the molecules, and…
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 consider the use of pulse-shaped broadband femtosecond lasers to optically cool rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom of molecules. Since this approach relies on cooling rotational and vibrational quanta by exciting an electronic…
We demonstrate a blackbody radiation thermometer based on optically excited rubidium atoms in a vapor cell. The temperature measurement is fast, with statistical uncertainty as low as 0.1% in one second. We resolve temperature with a…
Ultracold collisions of the polyatomic species CaOH are considered, in internal states where the collisions should be dominated by long-range dipole-dipole interactions. The computed rate constants suggest that evaporative cooling can be…
We report optical trapping of a polyatomic molecule, calcium monohydroxide (CaOH). CaOH molecules from a magneto-optical trap are sub-Doppler laser cooled to $20(3)~\mu\text{K}$ in free space and loaded into an optical dipole trap. We…
Photodetachment thermometry on a beam of OH$^-$ in a cryogenic storage ring cooled to below 10 K is carried out using two-dimensional, frequency and time dependent photodetachment spectroscopy over 20 minutes of ion storage. In equilibrium…
We investigate the rovibrational population redistribution of polar molecules in the electronic ground state induced by spontaneous emission and blackbody radiation. As a model system we use optically trapped LiCs molecules formed by…
We present an opto-electrical cooling scheme for polar molecules based on a Sisyphus-type cooling cycle in suitably tailored electric trapping fields. Dissipation is provided by spontaneous vibrational decay in a closed level scheme found…
Molecular hydrogen ions in weakly bound states close to the first dissociation threshold are attractive quantum sensors for measuring the proton-to-electron mass ratio and hyperfine-induced ortho-para mixing. The experimental accuracy of…
We report a magneto-optical trap of strontium monohydroxide (SrOH) containing 2000(600) molecules at a temperature of 1.2(3) mK. The lifetime is 91(9) ms, which is limited by decay to optically unaddressed vibrational states. This provides…
We present detailed calculations at the basis of our recent proposal for simultaneous cooling the rotational, vibrational and external molecular degrees of freedom. In this method, the molecular rovibronic states are coupled by an intense…
Nitric oxide (NO) molecules initially traveling at 795 m/s in pulsed supersonic beams have been photoexcited to long-lived hydrogenic Rydberg-Stark states, decelerated and electrostatically trapped in a cryogenically cooled, chip-based…
The efficiency of cavity sideband cooling of trapped molecules is theoretically investigated for the case where the IR transition between two rovibrational states is used as a cycling transition. The molecules are assumed to be trapped…
We have produced ultracold, polar RbCs* molecules via photoassociation in a laser-cooled mixture of Rb and Cs atoms. Using a model of the RbCs* molecular interaction which reproduces the observed rovibrational structure, we infer decay…
The transfer of weakly bound KRb molecules from levels just below the dissociation threshold into the vibrational ground state with shaped laser pulses is studied. Optimal control theory is employed to calculate the pulses. The complexity…
Ultracold polyatomic molecules offer intriguing new opportunities in cold chemistry, precision measurements, and quantum information processing, thanks to their rich internal structure. However, their increased complexity compared to…
We derive the life time and loss rate for a trapped particle that is coupled to fluctuating fields in the vicinity of a room-temperature metallic and/or dielectric surface. Our results indicate a clear predominance of near field effects…