Electrostatic trapping of metastable NH molecules

Abstract

We report on the Stark deceleration and electrostatic trapping of ${}^{14}$NH ($a^1\Delta$) radicals. In the trap, the molecules are excited on the spin-forbidden $A^3\Pi \leftarrow a^1\Delta$ transition and detected via their subsequent fluorescence to the $X^3{\Sigma }^{-}$ ground state. The 1/e trapping time is 1.4 $\pm$ 0.1 s, from which a lower limit of 2.7 s for the radiative lifetime of the $a^1\Delta ,v=0,J=2$ state is deduced. The spectral profile of the molecules in the trapping field is measured to probe their spatial distribution. Electrostatic trapping of metastable NH followed by optical pumping of the trapped molecules to the electronic ground state is an important step towards accumulation of these radicals in a magnetic trap.

replaced with final version, added journal reference

References in corpus (11)

• Cold Molecule Spectroscopy for Constraining the Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant
• Molecules Near Absolute Zero and External Field Control of Atomic and Molecular Dynamics
• Deceleration and electrostatic trapping of OH radicals
• Magneto-electrostatic trapping of ground state OH molecules
• Ultracold dipolar gases - a challenge for experiments and theory
• Magnetic trapping and Zeeman relaxation of imidogen (NH X-triplet-Sigma)
• Direct measurement of the radiative lifetime of vibrationally excited OH radicals
• The radiative lifetime of metastable CO ($a^3\Pi ,v=0$)
• Optical pumping of trapped neutral molecules by blackbody radiation
• On the interaction of NH($X^3{\Sigma }^{-}$) molecules with rubidium atoms: implications for sympathetic cooling and the formation of extremely polar molecules
• Production and deceleration of a pulsed beam of metastable NH ($a^1\Delta$) radicals

Cited by in corpus (30)

• Cold molecules: Progress in Quantum Engineering of Chemistry and Quantum Matter
• The Buffer Gas Beam: An Intense, Cold, and Slow Source for Atoms and Molecules
• Manipulation of Molecules with Electromagnetic Fields
• Formation and interactions of cold and ultracold molecules: new challenges for interdisciplinary physics
• Laser slowing of CaF molecules to near the capture velocity of a molecular MOT
• Production of ultracold NH molecules by sympathetic cooling with Mg
• Collisions between cold molecules in a superconducting magnetic trap
• Magnetic Trapping of Molecules via Optical Loading and Magnetic Slowing
• Scattering lengths in isotopologues of the RbYb system
• Quantum reactive scattering of ultracold NH($X{}^3{\Sigma }^{-}$) radicals in a magnetic trap
• The prospects of sympathetic cooling of NH molecules with Li atoms
• Ab initio potential energy surfaces for NH-NH with analytical long range
• Magnetic trapping of atomic nitrogen (14^N) and cotrapping of NH (X-triplet-Sigma-)
• Prospects for sympathetic cooling of polar molecules: NH with alkali-metal and alkaline-earth atoms - a new hope
• Mitigation of loss within a molecular Stark decelerator
• Cold and ultracold NH--NH collisions in magnetic fields
• Nonadiabatic transitions in a Stark decelerator
• Deceleration and trapping of SrF molecules
• Novel $p$-wave superfluids of fermionic polar molecules
• Efficient method for quantum calculations of molecule - molecule scattering properties in a magnetic field
• Cold and ultracold NH--NH collisions: The field-free case
• Loss of molecules in magneto-electrostatic traps due to nonadiabatic transitions
• Multistage Zeeman deceleration of metastable neon
• Stark deceleration of CaF molecules in strong- and weak-field seeking states
• Deceleration and trapping of heavy diatomic molecules using a ring-decelerator
• Multistage Zeeman deceleration of NH $X{}^3{\Sigma }^{-}$ radicals
• One dimensional magneto-optical compression of a cold CaF molecular beam
• Deceleration of a supersonic beam of SrF molecules to 120 m/s
• Ultracold hydrogen atoms: a versatile coolant to produce ultracold molecules
• Theoretical study of the quenching of NH (singlet Delta) molecules via collisions with Rb atoms: preliminary results