Trapping and Ground-State Cooling of a Single H${}_2^{+}$

Abstract

We demonstrate co-trapping and sideband cooling of a H${}_2^{+}$ - ${}^9$Be${}^{+}$ ion pair in a cryogenic Paul trap. We study the chemical lifetime of H${}_2^{+}$ and its dependence on the apparatus temperature, achieving lifetimes of up to $11_{-3}^{+6}$ h at 10 K. We demonstrate cooling of two of the modes of translational motion to an average phonon number of 0.07(1) and 0.05(1), corresponding to a temperature of 22(1) $\mu$K and 55(3) $\mu$K respectively. Our results provide a basis for quantum logic spectroscopy experiments of H${}_2^{+}$, as well as other light ions such as HD${}^{+}$, H${}_3^{+}$, and He${}^{+}$.

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Cold trapped molecular ions and hybrid platforms for ions and neutral particles
• Indirect Cooling of Weakly Coupled Trapped-Ion Mechanical Oscillators
• Quantum control of a single ${\mathrm{H}}_2^{+}$ molecular ion
• Low-excitation transport and separation of high-mass-ratio mixed-species ion chains
• State-Selective Ionization and Trapping of Single H${}_2^{+}$ Ions with (2+1) Multiphoton Ionization