Rotational cooling of heteronuclear molecular ions with ^1-Sigma, ^2-Sigma, ^3-Sigma and ^2-Pi electronic ground states

Abstract

The translational motion of molecular ions can be effectively cooled sympathetically to translational temperatures below 100 mK in ion traps through Coulomb interactions with laser-cooled atomic ions. The ro-vibrational degrees of freedom, however, are expected to be largely unaffected during translational cooling. We have previously proposed schemes for cooling of the internal degrees of freedom of such translationally cold but internally hot heteronuclear diatomic ions in the simplest case of ^1-Sigma electronic ground state molecules. Here we present a significant simplification of these schemes and make a generalization to the most frequently encountered electronic ground states of heteronuclear molecular ions: ^1-Sigma, ^2-Sigma, ^3-Sigma and ^2-Pi. The schemes are relying on one or two laser driven transitions with the possible inclusion of a tailored incoherent far infrared radiation field.

arXiv comment16 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules
• Slowing heavy, ground-state molecules using an alternating gradient decelerator
• Phase Space Manipulation of Cold Free Radical OH Molecules
• Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Sympathetic Crystallization of Molecular Ions
• Blackbody-radiation-assisted molecular laser cooling
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• Ion-atom cold collision: Formation of cold molecular ion by radiative processes
• Probabilistic state preparation of a single molecular ion by projection measurement
• Optical pulse-shaping for internal cooling of molecules
• Decay rate measurement of the first vibrationally excited state of MgH${}^{+}$ in a cryogenic Paul trap
• Cavity cooling of translational and ro-vibrational motion of molecules: ab initio-based simulations for OH and NO
• Molecular heat pump for rotational states
• Sympathetically cooled molecular ions: from principles to first applications