High-resolution optical spectroscopy with a buffer-gas-cooled beam of BaH molecules

Abstract

Barium monohydride (BaH) is an attractive candidate for extending laser cooling and trapping techniques to diatomic hydrides. The apparatus and high-resolution optical spectroscopy presented here demonstrate progress toward this goal. A cryogenic buffer-gas-cooled molecular beam of BaH was constructed and characterized. Pulsed laser ablation into cryogenic helium buffer gas delivers $\sim 1\times 10^{10}$ molecules/sr/pulse in the X${}^2{\Sigma }^{+}$ ($v^{\prime \prime }=0,N^{\prime \prime }=1$) state of primary interest. More than $1\times 10^7$ of these molecules per pulse enter the downstream science region with forward velocities below 100 m/s and transverse temperature of 0.1 K. This molecular beam enabled high-resolution optical spectra of BaH in quantum states relevant to laser slowing and cooling. The reported measurements include hyperfine structure and magnetic $g$ factors in the X${}^2{\Sigma }^{+}$, B${}^2{\Sigma }^{+}$, and A${}^2{\Pi }_{1/2}$ states.

Improved velocity distributions

References in corpus (10)

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• Radiative deflection of a BaF molecular beam from the optical cycling
• Spectroscopy on the $A^1\Pi \leftarrow X^1{\Sigma }^{+}$ Transition of Buffer-Gas Cooled AlCl
• Controlling the ac Stark effect of RbCs with dc electric and magnetic fields
• Bright, continuous beams of cold free radicals
• Three-dimensional modeling magneto-optical trapping of MgF molecule with multilevel rate equations
• Quantitative theoretical analysis of lifetimes and decay rates relevant in laser cooling BaH
• Large molasses-like cooling forces for molecules using polychromatic optical fields: A theoretical description
• Assignment of excited-state bond lengths using branching-ratio measurements: The B${}^2{\Sigma }^{+}$ state of BaH molecules
• Influence of source parameters on the longitudinal phase-space distribution of a pulsed cryogenic beam of barium fluoride molecules
• Production of carbon clusters ${\text{C}}_3$ to ${\text{C}}_{12}$ with a cryogenic buffer-gas beam source
• Nuclear spin relaxation in cold atom-molecule collisions
• Hyperfine structure of the ${\mathbf{A}}^1\mathbf{\Pi }$ state of AlCl and its relevance to laser cooling and trapping
• Shaped nozzles for cryogenic buffer gas beam sources
• Low-$J$ transitions in ${\tilde{A}}^2\Pi (0,0,0)-{\tilde{X}}^2{\Sigma }^{+}(0,0,0)$ band of buffer-gas-cooled CaOH
• Measurement of Doppler effects in cryogenic buffer-gas cell
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• Highly spin-polarized molecules via collisional microwave pumping