Promising conditions identified for sympathetic cooling of molecules with atoms.
CQD students Sarunas Jurgilas (cohort 8) and Caleb Rich (cohort 10) studied collisions between laser-cooled molecules and atoms in a magnetic trap. The paper (published in PRL) examines the dependence of the inelastic collision rate on the internal states of the atoms and molecules and sheds light on how atoms may be used to sympathetically cool molecules towards quantum degeneracy.
Their work was also featured on phys.org with a synopsis which may be found here.
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Reporter
Miranda Toora
Department of Materials
