Cold N - NH Collisions in a Magnetic Trap

ORAL

Abstract

Direct cooling and deceleration techniques typically produce molecular samples with temperatures in the range of 10 to 500~mK. Sympathetic cooling of these molecular samples via collisions with a cotrapped atomic species may be a route to attaining temperatures below 1 mK. We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of cold collisions between magnetically trapped atomic nitrogen and NH at temperatures of $\sim 500$~mK and discuss its implications for sympathetic cooling of molecules to ultracold temperatures.

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Authors

  • Matthew Hummon

    • Harvard University Physics Department, Cambridge, MA 02138

  • Timur Tscherbul

    • Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

  • Jacek Klos

    • Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742

  • Hsin-I Lu

    • School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138

  • Edem Tsikata

    • Harvard University Physics Department, Cambridge, MA 02138

  • Wesley Campbell

    • Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland Department of Physics and NIST, College Park, MD 20742

  • Alexander Dalgarno

    • Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

  • John Doyle

    • Harvard University Physics Department, Cambridge, MA 02138