Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme

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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik

MO 13: Poster 1: Cold Molecules, Femtosecond Spectroscopy, Molecular Dynamics

MO 13.7: Poster

Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 16:30–19:00, Poster.IV

Towards precision spectroscopy of laser cooled molecules — •Corine Meinema, Joost van den Berg, Klaus Jungmann, Aernout van der Poel, and Steven Hoekstra — KVI, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

We aim to use lasercooling to bring alkaline-earth monohalide molecules to ultracold temperatures, in order to perform high-precision spectroscopic tests of fundamental physics. The selected group of molecules is promising because an (almost) closed cycle for lasercooling can be created using a limited number of lasers. By using a Stark decelerator to reduce the average speed of a molecular sample, the required number of scattered photons to reach the ultracold regime (sim 100 µK) is greatly reduced. We are currently working on a supersonic beam of SrF molecules, constructing a Stark-decelerator based on ring electrodes, and setting up the required lasers. Especially interesting to us are the challenges and possibilities of lasercooling molecules in the presence of electric fields. A new generation of precision measurements to probe fundamental interactions and symmetries is possible once such samples of sufficiently cold molecules are available.