A Road Map to Ultracold Polyatomic Molecules

Producing ensembles of polyatomic molecules at ultracold temperatures is a challenge. In pursuit of this goal, we propose a very general scheme combining sequentially three promising techniques. First, high-flux continuous supersonic beams of internally cold polar molecules are produced from a buffer-gas cell [1,2] operated in hydrodynamic regime. Then those beams are guided in an electrostatic guide [3] and decelerated by the centrifugal potential in a rotating frame. The decelerated beams are delivered to an electrostatic trap, where the molecules are further cooled down via a Sisyphus process [4] employing laser, microwave, and radiofrequency radiation. Here we demonstrate experimental results from the three techniques and give evidence for the viability of their joint operation en route to achieving sub-milliKelvin ensembles of polyatomic polar molecules.\\[4pt] [1] L.D. van Buuren et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 102}, 033001 (2009)\\[0pt] [2] C. Sommer et al., Faraday Discuss. {\bf 142}, 203 (2009)\\[0pt] [3] S.A. Rangwala et al., Phys. Rev. A {\bf 67}, 043406 (2003)\\[0pt] [4] M. Zeppenfeld et al., Nature {\bf 491}, 570 (2012)