Related papers: Cold free radical molecules in the laboratory fram…
We report bunching, slowing, and acceleration of a supersonically cooled beam of diatomic hydroxyl radicals (OH). \textit{In situ} observation of laser-induced fluorescence along the beam propagation path allows for detailed…
Stark deceleration has been utilized for slowing and trapping several species of neutral, ground-state polar molecules generated in a supersonic beam expansion. Due to the finite physical dimension of the electrode array and practical…
We propose a method for controlling a class of low temperature chemical reactions. Specifically, we show the hydrogen abstraction channel in the reaction of formaldehyde (H$_{2}$CO) and the hydroxyl radical (OH) can be controlled through…
Atomic physics was revolutionized by the development of forced evaporative cooling: it led directly to the observation of Bose-Einstein condensation, quantum-degenerate Fermi gases, and ultracold optical lattice simulations of condensed…
An improved system for creating a pulsed, low-temperature molecular beam of OH radicals has been developed. We use a pulsed discharge to create OH from H$_2$O seeded in Xe during a supersonic expansion, where the high-voltage pulse duration…
Cold, neutral hydroxyl radicals are Stark decelerated and confined within a magnetic trap consisting of two permanent ring magnets. The OH molecules are trapped in the ro-vibrational ground state at a density of $\sim10^{6}$ cm$^{-3}$ and…
We demonstrate the long-term ($<$ 1 minute) trapping of Stark-decelerated OH radicals in their $X~^{2}\Pi _{3/2}~(\nu = 0,~J = 3/2,~M_{J} = 3/2,~f)$ state in a permanent magnetic trap. The trap environment was cryogenically cooled to a…
We study the dynamics of a supersonic molecular beam in a low-finesse optical cavity and demonstrate that most molecules in the beam can be decelerated to zero central velocity by the intracavity optical field in a process analogous to…
We describe the production of cold, slow-moving LiH molecules. The molecules are produced in the ground state using laser ablation and supersonic expansion, and 68% of the population is transferred to the rotationally excited state using…
We report the magnetic confinement of neutral, ground state hydroxyl radicals (OH) at a density of $\sim3\times10^{3}$ cm$^{-3}$ and temperature of $\sim$30 mK. An adjustable electric field of sufficient magnitude to polarize the OH is…
Ultracold collisions of polar OH molecules are considered in the presence of an electrostatic field. The field exerts a strong influence on both elastic and state-changing inelastic collision rate constants, leading to clear experimental…
We predict that it is possible to cool rotational, vibrational and translational degrees of freedom of molecules by coupling a molecular dipole transition to an optical cavity. The dynamics is numerically simulated for a realistic set of…
Employing a two-stage cryogenic buffer gas cell, we produce a cold, hydrodynamically extracted beam of calcium monohydride molecules with a near effusive velocity distribution. Beam dynamics, thermalization and slowing are studied using…
A pulsed beam of ground state OH radicals is slowed down using a Stark decelerator and is subsequently loaded into an electrostatic trap. Characterization of the molecular beam production, deceleration and trap loading process is performed…
Because chemical reactions on/in cosmic ice dust grains covered by amorphous solid water (ASW) play important roles in generating a variety of molecules, many experimental and theoretical studies have focused on the chemical processes…
We demonstrate a new gas-based OH generation source using a low power RF-driven atmospheric pressure plasma configured to deliver the radical flux into the far effluent region, well away from interference from other plasma factors such as…
We investigate to which extend a THz laser pulse can be used to produce field-free molecular orientation at high temperature. We consider laser pulses that can be implemented with the state of the art technology and we show that the…
We use accurate quantum mechanical calculations to analyze the effects of parallel electric and magnetic fields on collision dynamics of OH(2Pi) molecules. It is demonstrated that spin relaxation in 3He-OH collisions at temperatures below…
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 present the first experimental observation of cold collisions between two different species of neutral polar molecules, each prepared in a single internal quantum state. Combining for the first time the techniques of Stark deceleration,…