Emulating optical cycling centers in polyatomic molecules

Abstract

An optical cycling center (OCC) is a recently coined term to indicate two electronic states within a complex quantum object that can repeatedly experience optical laser excitation and spontaneous decay, while being well isolated from its environment. Here we present a quantitative understanding of electronic, vibrational, and rotational excitations of the polyatomic SrOH molecule, which possesses a localized OCC near its Sr atom. In particular, we describe the vibrationally-dependent trends in the Franck-Condon factors of the bending and stretching modes of the molecular electronic states coupled in the optical transition. These simulations required us to perform electronic structure calculations of the multi-dimensional potential energy surfaces of both ground and excited states, the determination of vibrational and bending modes, and corresponding Franck-Condon factors. We also discuss the extent to which the optical cycling center has diagonal Franck-Condon factors.

28 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Molecules cooled below the Doppler limit
• Sisyphus Laser Cooling of a Polyatomic Molecule
• Radio Frequency Magneto-Optical Trapping of CaF with High Density
• 3-D Magneto-Optical Trap of Yttrium Monoxide
• Ultracold molecules for measuring the electron's electric dipole moment
• Sub-millikelvin dipolar molecules in a radio-frequency magneto-optical trap
• Polyatomic candidates for cooling of molecules with lasers from simple theoretical concepts
• Determination of CaOH and CaOCH${}_3$ vibrational branching ratios for direct laser cooling and trapping
• Prospects for laser cooling of polyatomic molecules with increasing complexity
• Fluorescence branching ratios and magnetic tuning of the visible spectrum of SrOH

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Polyatomic Molecules as Quantum Sensors for Fundamental Physics
• Laser cooled molecules
• Molecular Asymmetry and Optical Cycling: Laser Cooling Asymmetric Top Molecules
• Enhanced Sensitivity to Ultralight Bosonic Dark Matter in the Spectra of the Linear Radical SrOH
• High Phase-Space Density of Laser-Cooled Molecules in an Optical Lattice
• Optical cycling, radiative deflection and laser cooling of barium monohydride (BaH)
• Accurate prediction and measurement of vibronic branching ratios for laser cooling linear polyatomic molecules
• Prospects for laser cooling of polyatomic molecules with increasing complexity
• Intensity-borrowing mechanisms pertinent to laser cooling of linear polyatomic molecules
• Full-dimensional quantum scattering calculations on ultracold atom-molecule collisions in magnetic fields: The role of molecular vibrations
• Multivalent optical cycling centers in polyatomic molecules
• Vibrational Branching Ratios for Laser-Cooling of Nonlinear Strontium-Containing Molecules
• Spectroscopy of laser cooling transitions in MgF
• Optical cycling in charged complexes with Ra-N bonds