Erlangen 2018 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 19: Cold atoms V - optical lattices (joint session A/Q)

A 19.6: Vortrag

Dienstag, 6. März 2018, 15:15–15:30, K 0.011

Progress in the cooling of molecules using a magnetic decelerator — Yair Segev, Michael Karpov, •Martin Pitzer, Nitzan Akerman, Julia Narevicius, and Edvardas Narevicius — Department of Chemical & Biological Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Ultracold and dense ensembles of molecules can complement their atomic counterparts in the investigation of various fundamental questions, e.g. in cold chemistry, precision measurements or many-body physics [1].

However, many cooling schemes - especially optical cooling - are much more difficult to implement for molecules than they are for atoms. We report here our recent progress in a different approach, a magnetic decelerator for paramagnetic species [2,3].

A pulsed supersonic expansion provides a cold (around 300 mK) and extremely dense jet of oxygen molecules that are slowed down by a co-moving magnetic trap. After catching these molecules in a superconducting magnetic trap, several cooling schemes such as evaporative or sympathetic cooling can be performed. Due to the high initial particle density of 10¹⁰ cm⁻³, we expect to observe collisions of molecules in the rovibrational ground state and study the elastic and inelastic cross sections relevant for cooling towards quantum degeneracy.

[1] Carr, et al., New J. Phys. 11, 055049 (2009)

[2] Akerman, et al., New J. Phys. 17, 065015 (2015)

[3] Akerman, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 073204 (2017)