Nonadiabatic transitions in electrostatically trapped ammonia molecules

Abstract

Nonadiabatic transitions are known to be major loss channels for atoms in magnetic traps, but have thus far not been experimentally reported upon for trapped molecules. We have observed and quantified losses due to nonadiabatic transitions for three isotopologues of ammonia in electrostatic traps, by comparing the trapping times in traps with a zero and a non-zero electric field at the center. Nonadiabatic transitions are seen to dominate the overall loss rate even for samples at relatively high temperatures of 10-50 mK.

References in corpus (6)

• 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
• Direct measurement of the radiative lifetime of vibrationally excited OH radicals
• Optical pumping of trapped neutral molecules by blackbody radiation
• Time-Domain Measurement of Spontaneous Vibrational Decay of Magnetically Trapped NH
• Loss of molecules in magneto-electrostatic traps due to nonadiabatic transitions

Cited by in corpus (20)

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• Ionization of 1D and 3D oriented asymmetric top molecules by intense circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulses
• Large Effects of Electric Fields on Atom-Molecule Collisions at Millikelvin Temperatures
• Opto-Electrical Cooling of Polar Molecules
• Storage and Adiabatic Cooling of Polar Molecules in a Microstructured Trap
• Multiple packets of neutral molecules revolving for over a mile
• A traveling wave decelerator for neutral polar molecules
• Nonadiabatic transitions in a Stark decelerator
• The effect of hyperfine interactions on ultracold molecular collisions: NH(^3Sigma^-) with Mg(^1S) in magnetic fields
• Suppression of non-adiabatic losses of molecules from chip-based microtraps
• Microwave Lens for Polar Molecules
• A new concept multi-stage Zeeman decelerator
• Electric-field-controlled cold dipolar collisions between trapped CH${}_3$F molecules
• Rotational dynamics of an asymmetric top molecule in parallel electric and non-resonant laser fields
• Advanced switching schemes in a Stark decelerator
• Collisions Between Ultracold Atoms and Cold Molecules in a Dual Electrostatic-Magnetic Trap
• Trapping molecules on chips