Microwave traps for cold polar molecules

Abstract

We discuss the possibility of trapping polar molecules in the standing-wave electromagnetic field of a microwave resonant cavity. Such a trap has several novel features that make it very attractive for the development of ultracold molecule sources. Using commonly available technologies, microwave traps can be built with large depth (up to several Kelvin) and acceptance volume (up to several cm^3), suitable for efficient loading with currently available sources of cold polar molecules. Unlike most previous traps for molecules, this technology can be used to confine the strong-field seeking absolute ground state of the molecule, in a free-space maximum of the microwave electric field. Such ground state molecules should be immune to inelastic collisional losses. We calculate elastic collision cross-sections for the trapped molecules, due to the electrical polarization of the molecules at the trap center, and find that they are extraordinarily large. Thus, molecules in a microwave trap should be very amenable to sympathetic and/or evaporative cooling. The combination of these properties seems to open a clear path to producing large samples of polar molecules at temperatures much lower than has been possible previously.

10 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (15)

• Atomic Scattering in Presence of an External Confinement and a Gas of Impenetrable Bosons
• Quantum computation with trapped polar molecules
• Quantum phases of dipolar bosons in optical lattices
• A continuous source of translationally cold dipolar molecules
• Production of Ultracold, Polar RbCs* Molecules via Photoassociation
• Superfluid pairing in a polarized dipolar Fermi gas
• Phase Space Manipulation of Cold Free Radical OH Molecules
• High precision measurement of the static dipole polarizability of cesium
• Magnetic control of the interaction in ultracold K-Rb mixtures
• Linking Ultracold Polar Molecules
• Collisional dynamics of ultracold OH molecules in an electrostatic field
• Magnetic field effects in ultracold molecular collisions
• Two-dimensional trapping of dipolar molecules in time-varying electric fields
• Inelastic Collisions of Ultracold Polar Molecules
• On the interaction of NH($X^3{\Sigma }^{-}$) molecules with rubidium atoms: implications for sympathetic cooling and the formation of extremely polar molecules

Cited by in corpus (46)

• Cold and Ultracold Molecules: Science, Technology, and Applications
• Manipulation of Molecules with Electromagnetic Fields
• Sisyphus Cooling of Electrically Trapped Polyatomic Molecules
• High-flux beam source for cold, slow atoms or molecules
• Formation and interactions of cold and ultracold molecules: new challenges for interdisciplinary physics
• Laser radiation pressure slowing of a molecular beam
• Optoelectrical cooling of polar molecules to sub-millikelvin temperatures
• An AC electric trap for ground-state molecules
• Controlling the scattering length of ultracold dipolar molecules
• Quasi-Universal Dipolar Scattering in Cold and Ultracold Gases
• Ultracold Rb-OH collisions and prospects for sympathetic cooling
• Controlling collisions of ultracold atoms with dc electric fields
• Strongly interacting ultracold polar molecules
• A Bright, Slow Cryogenic Molecular Beam Source for Free Radicals
• Formation of ultracold LiCs molecules
• Single-Photon Atomic Cooling
• Controlling Polar Molecules in Optical Lattices
• Ultracold Sticky Collisions: Theoretical and Experimental Status
• Long range scattering resonances in strong-field seeking states of polar molecules
• Modeling sympathetic cooling of molecules by ultracold atoms
• Cold collisions of OH and Rb. I: the free collision
• Resonant dipolar collisions of ultracold molecules induced by microwave dressing
• Quantum theory of chemical reactions in the presence of electromagnetic fields
• Manipulating ultracold polar molecules with microwave radiation: the influence of hyperfine structure
• Collisional Control of Ground State Polar Molecules and Universal Dipolar Scattering
• Trapping of ultracold polar molecules with a Thin Wire Electrostatic Trap
• Prospects for sympathetic cooling of molecules in electrostatic, ac and microwave traps
• Product state control of bi-alkali chemical reactions
• Ultracold Collisions of Fermionic OD Radicals
• Microwave Lens for Polar Molecules
• Hyperfine structure in the microwave spectra of ultracold polar molecules
• Energy Dependence of Scattering Ground State Polar Molecules
• Stark deceleration of CaF molecules in strong- and weak-field seeking states
• Decelerating molecules with microwave fields
• Atomic microwave-to-optical signal transduction via magnetic-field coupling in a resonant microwave cavity
• Ab Initio Study of Chemical Reactions of Cold SrF and CaF Molecules with Alkali-Metal and Alkaline-Earth-Metal Atoms
• Photostop: Production of zero-velocity molecules by photodissociation in a molecular beam
• Toroidal nano-traps for cold polar molecules
• Collisional properties of cold spin-polarized nitrogen gas: theory, experiment, and prospects as a sympathetic coolant for trapped atoms and molecules
• Microwave trap for atoms and molecules
• A high quality, efficiently coupled microwave cavity for trapping cold molecules
• Cavity cooling of translational and ro-vibrational motion of molecules: ab initio-based simulations for OH and NO
• Collisions of bosonic ultracold polar molecules in microwave traps
• Dynamics of a buffer-gas-loaded, deep optical trap for molecules
• Deceleration of continuous molecular beams
• Cavity-Mediated Collective Resonant Suppression of Local Molecular Vibrations