Authors: Xing Wu, Sotir Chervenkov, Joseph Bayer, Andreas Rohlfes, Martin Zeppenfeld, Gerhard Rempe

Address: Max-Planck-Institut feur Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

Abstract: We present the concept of and the first experimental results from a decelerator for continuous beams of neutral polar molecules, which employs the centrifugal potential in a rotating frame. A beam of polar molecules is injected at the periphery and electrically guided [1] to the center of the rotating frame along a spiral trajectory. Thus the molecules climb up the centrifugal potential hill and get decelerated as they propagate. Since the rotation speed is tunable, the centrifuge decelerator is well-suited for a large range of input velocities. In a proof-of-principle experiment we demonstrate the deceleration of a neutral CF₃H beam from an effusive source at room temperature, yielding a continuous output with a flux of several 10⁹s for molecules with velocities below 20m/s. Moreover, in combination with our cryogenic source [2,3], deceleration of dense and internally cold molecular beams is conceivable. This could provide an ideal source of cold and slow molecules for various experiments and applications, in particular, for trapping and subsequent opto-electrical cooling [4].

Reference:

[1] S.A. Rangwala et al., Phys. Rev. A 67, 043406 (2003)

[2] L.D. van Buuren et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 033001 (2009)

[3] C. Sommer et al., Faraday Discuss. 142, 203 (2009)

[4] M. Zeppenfeld et al., Nature 491, 570 (2012)