Laser-Cooled Polyatomic Molecules for Precision Measurement
Abstract
Compared to atoms, laser-cooling and trapping of molecules presents a significant challenge due to their complicated energy level structure, arising from additional vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom. However, these same degrees of freedom make molecules an attractive platform for research in a broad collection of fields. For example, the large, easily polarized, internal electromagnetic fields of polar molecules make them a powerful platform for precision measurement searches of physics beyond the standard model (BSM). While BSM searches have been previously performed with cryogenic molecular beam experiments probing physics at TeV energy scales, laser-cooled molecules can provide orders of magnitude improvement in measurement time, probing up to PeV scales. We plan to combine cryogenic buffer gas techniques with laser-cooling of YbOH to preform precision measurements of the Yb nuclear magnetic quadrupole moment (MQM), a signature of BSM physics. Polar, polyatomic molecules, such as YbOH, have energy properties favorable to both laser-cooling and precision measurement. Such work producing ultracold molecules has applications in many fields beyond precision measurement, such as quantum information, many-body quantum dynamics, and ultracold chemistry.
None.- Publication:
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APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018APS..MARG60256J