Preparation of an ultra-cold sample of ammonia molecules for precision measurements

Abstract

We present experiments in which an ultra-cold sample of ammonia molecules is released from an electrostatic trap and recaptured after a variable time. It is shown that, by performing adiabatic cooling before releasing the molecules and adiabatic re-compression after they are recaptured, we are able to observe molecules even after more than 10 ms of free expansion. A coherent measurement performed during this time will have a statistical uncertainty that decreases approximately as the inverse of the square root of the expansion time. This offers interesting prospects for high-resolution spectroscopy and precision tests of fundamental physics theories.

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• Stability of the proton-to-electron mass ratio
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• High-resolution imaging of C + He collisions using Zeeman deceleration and VUV detection
• Adiabatic Channel Capture Theory Applied to Cold Atom-Molecule Reactions: Li + CaH -> LiH + Ca at 1 K
• Enhanced sensitivity to a possible variation of the proton-to-electron mass ratio in ammonia
• High-resolution 'magic'-field spectroscopy on trapped polyatomic molecules
• Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry - Aspects at Low Energy
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• Sensitive Low-Recoil VUV 1+1${}^{\prime }$ REMPI Detection of ND${}_3$