An ultracold molecular beam for testing fundamental physics

Abstract

We use two-dimensional transverse laser cooling to produce an ultracold beam of YbF molecules. Through experiments and numerical simulations, we study how the cooling is influenced by the polarization configuration, laser intensity, laser detuning and applied magnetic field. The ultracold part of the beam contains more than $2\times 10^5$ molecules per shot and has a temperature below 200 $\mu$K, and the cooling yields a 300-fold increase in the brightness of the beam. The method can improve the precision of experiments that use molecules to test fundamental physics. In particular, the beam is suitable for measuring the electron electric dipole moment with a statistical precision better than $10^{-30}$ e cm.

25 pages, 14 figures. Trajectory simulations added and results compared to experiment; other minor revisions

References in corpus (9)

• Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC
• Direct Laser Cooling of a Symmetric Top Molecule
• Laser cooling of molecules
• Laser cooled molecules
• Three-dimensional Doppler, polarization-gradient, and magneto-optical forces for atoms and molecules with dark states
• Methods for measuring the electron EDM using ultracold YbF molecules
• New techniques for a measurement of the electron's electric dipole moment
• Bright, continuous beams of cold free radicals

Cited by in corpus (7)

• A terahertz vibrational molecular clock with systematic uncertainty at the $10^{-14}$ level
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• Molecular Laser-Cooling in a Dynamically Tunable Repulsive Optical Trap
• Towards improved loading, cooling, and trapping of molecules in magneto-optical traps
• Direct observation of the Yb(4f13 6s2)F states and accurate determination of the YbF ionization energy
• Multivalent optical cycling centers in polyatomic molecules
• Stimulated Laser Cooling Using Microfabrication