Realizing a molecular magneto-optical trap has been a dream for cold molecular physicists for a long time. However,due to the complex energy levels and the small effective Lande g-factor of the excited states, the tra...Realizing a molecular magneto-optical trap has been a dream for cold molecular physicists for a long time. However,due to the complex energy levels and the small effective Lande g-factor of the excited states, the traditional magneto-optical trap（MOT） scheme does not work very well for polar molecules. One way to overcome this problem is the switching MOT,which requires very fast switching of both the magnetic field and the laser polarizations. Switching laser polarizations is relatively easy, but fast switching of the magnetic field is experimentally challenging. Here we propose an alternative approach, the microwave-mediated MOT, which requires a slight change of the current experimental setup to solve the problem. We calculate the MOT force and compare it with the traditional MOT and the switching MOT scheme. The results show that we can operate a good MOT with this simple setup.展开更多
基金Project supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China
文摘Realizing a molecular magneto-optical trap has been a dream for cold molecular physicists for a long time. However,due to the complex energy levels and the small effective Lande g-factor of the excited states, the traditional magneto-optical trap（MOT） scheme does not work very well for polar molecules. One way to overcome this problem is the switching MOT,which requires very fast switching of both the magnetic field and the laser polarizations. Switching laser polarizations is relatively easy, but fast switching of the magnetic field is experimentally challenging. Here we propose an alternative approach, the microwave-mediated MOT, which requires a slight change of the current experimental setup to solve the problem. We calculate the MOT force and compare it with the traditional MOT and the switching MOT scheme. The results show that we can operate a good MOT with this simple setup.
