Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 36: Ultracold Molecules
Q 36.1: Talk
Tuesday, March 6, 2018, 14:00–14:15, K 2.013
A Cryofuge enabling cold collision studies for sympathetic and evaporative cooling of polar molecules — •Thomas Gantner, Manuel Koller, Xing Wu ø, Martin Zeppenfeld, and Gerhard Rempe — Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, 85748 Garching, Deutschland
Understanding molecular collisions at low energies is a prerequisite for future sympathetic and evaporative cooling of naturally occurring molecules. However, experimental investigation of collisions in the cold (T < 1 K) and ultracold (T < 1 mK) temperature regime is still in its infancy. Open questions include ratios of elastic and inelastic collision rates and the possible existence of so-called sticky collisions. Our Cryofuge setup, the combination of centrifuge deceleration [1] and buffer gas cooling, produces slow molecular beams with densities of over 109/cm3 and thereby enables the observation of cold molecular collisions. The dipolar nature of these collisions leads to large observed cross sections (> 10−12 cm2) with theoretically modeled elastic and inelastic collisional loss rates agreeing with the experimental findings [2]. As a next step, the molecules are loaded into an electrostatic trap [3] enabling much more detailed studies due to longer interaction times. Such measurements are expected to lay the basis for future cooling of polyatomic molecules to quantum degeneracy.
[1] S. Chervenkov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 013001 (2014)
[2] X. Wu et al., Science 358, 645-648, (2017)
[3] B.G.U. Englert et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 263003 (2011)
ø Now at: Departments of Physics, Yale and Harvard University