Optical depletion spectroscopy for probing evaporatively cooled OH

ORAL

Abstract

Pulsed laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) measurements provide a sensitive probe for the detection of molecular species. However, the broad linewidth of the pulsed lasers used for molecular excitation obscures spectral information useful for determination of molecule temperature. This limitation can be overcome by the use of a second, narrowband source of radiation that can deplete a subset of the molecules detected using PLIF, and a high resolution depletion spectrum can be obtained. In the past, we have demonstrated the use of microwave depletion spectroscopy to measure magnetically trapped, evaporatively cooled OH temperatures in the range of 5-50 mK. The lower limit of 5 mK is set by the details of the microwave transition. Here we present temperature measurements of trapped OH using an optical depletion technique, which is in principle capable of probing temperatures as low as 50 microkelvin.

*We acknowledge funding from the NSF Physics Frontier Center, NIST, DOE, and the AFOSR MURI on Cold Molecules.

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Authors

  • Matthew Hummon

    • JILA, University of CO, Boulder

  • Hao Wu

    • JILA, University of CO, Boulder

  • Benjamin Stuhl

    • JILA, University of CO, Boulder

  • David Reens

    • JILA, University of CO, Boulder

  • Mark Yeo

    • JILA, University of CO, Boulder

  • Jun Ye

    • JILA, NIST, University of Colorado, Boulder
    • JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
    • JILA/University of Colorado at Boulder
    • JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
    • JILA, University of CO, Boulder and NIST
    • JILA, NIST and University of Colorado-Boulder, and Department of Physics, University of Colorado-Boulder
    • JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics
    • JILA, NIST, and University of Colorado-Boulder