Direct laser cooling of molecules

Abstract

The methods of laser cooling of atoms have long been applied to obtain cold and ultracold atomic gases, including degenerate states and the atomic Bose–Einstein condensate in particular. Until recently the application of laser cooling methods to molecules was assumed to be impossible because of the complex structure of molecular levels and the absence of closed cooling cycles for transitions between the electron levels of molecules in the general case. However, it has recently become clear that laser cooling can be performed for a large class of molecules, including not only the simplest diatomic molecules but also polyatomic molecules. We here present the general principles for identifying suitable molecules and discuss current studies on and further developments in the laser cooling of molecules.

Production of ultracold polyatomic molecules with strong polarity by laser cooling: A detailed theoretical study on CaNC and SrNC

“…Cooling molecules to the ultracold regime is of significant importance for novel science and techniques. Representative applications include precision measurements, quantum information storage, and quantum computing (Tarbutt, 2018;Isaev, 2020). For a long time, however, laser cooling to ultracold regimes has been limited to atoms and diatomic molecules.…”

Towards CP -violation studies on superheavy molecules: Theoretical and experimental perspectives

“…Because of their large atomic number, superheavy radioactive elements are expected to exhibit a substantial enhancement in their E eff since one expects relativistic and electron correlation effects to be prominent. Indeed, effective electric fields of CnH [25,26], CnF [27], LrO, NoF, RfN, E120F (where E120 stands for element 120), and E121O (where E121 stands for element 121) [28] have been calculated and attest to the above statement. In this work, we focus our studies on diatomic molecules containing Lr atoms, i.e., LrO, LrF + , and LrH + .…”

Towards CP Violation Studies on Superheavy Molecules: Theoretical and Experimental Perspective

“…Because of their large atomic number, super-heavy radioactive elements are expected to exhibit a substantial enhancement in their E eff , since one expects relativistic and electron correlation effects to be prominent. Indeed, effective electric fields of CnH [21,22], CnF [23], LrO, NoF, RfN, E120F, and E121O [24] have been calculated, and asserts the above statement. In this work, we focus our studies on diatomic molecules containing Lr atoms, i.e.…”