Hamburg 2009 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik
MO 11: Kalte Moleküle 2
MO 11.1: Vortrag
Dienstag, 3. März 2009, 14:00–14:15, VMP 6 HS-G
Nonadiabatic transitions in electrostatically trapped ammonia molecules — •Moritz Kirste1, Boris Sartakov2, Melanie Schnell1, and Gerard Meijer1 — 1Fritz-Haber-Institut der MPG, Abt. Molekülphysik, Faradayweg 4-6, D-14195 Berlin — 2General Physics Institute RAS, Vavilov Street 38, 119991 Moskau
Nonadiabatic transitions are known to be major loss channels for atoms in magnetic traps. Nonadiabatic transitions are also one of the three mechanisms through which polar molecules can get lost from an electrostatic trap, beside collisions and pumping by black-body radiation, but have thus far not been experimentally reported upon for trapped molecules. We have observed and quantified losses due to nonadiabatic transitions for three isotopologues of ammonia in electrostatic traps, by comparing the trapping times in traps with a zero and a non-zero electric field at the center. Nonadiabatic transitions are seen to dominate the overall loss rate even for samples at relatively high temperatures of 10-50 mK. In this talk we will introduce our Ioffe-Pritchard type electrostatic trap and we will present our experimental and theoretical results to understand nonadiabatic transitions in ammonia.