Ekaterina Ilinova, Jonathan Weinstein, Andrei Derevianko
University of Nevada, Reno
We propose a method of stimulated laser decelerating of diatomic moleculesby counter-propagating pi-trains of ultrashort laser pulses. Thedecelerating cycles occur on the rovibrational transitions inside the sameground electronic manifold, thus avoiding thecommon problem of radiative branching in Doppler cooling of molecules. Bymatching the frequency comb spectrum of the pulse trains to spect-rum ofthe R-branch rovibratio-nal transitions we show that stimulated coolingcan be carried out on several rovibrationaltransitions simultaneously, thereby increas-ing number of cooledmolecules. The exerted optical force does not rely on the decay rates in asystem and can be orders of magnitude larger than the typical values ofscattering force obtained in conventional Doppler laser cooling schemes.