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arXiv:2602.12898 · Physical Review Research

Sympathetic cooling of charged particles in Penning traps using electron cyclotron radiation

Jost Herkenhoff, Jonathan Notter, K. Blaum

Published Dec 24, 2025• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a technique for cooling arbitrary charged particles in a Penning trap by utilizing self-cooled electrons stored in a separate, macroscopically distant Penning trap as the cooling medium. The electrons decay predominantly to their motional ground state by emission of cyclotron radiation, which results in extremely low temperatures in the realm of single-digit quantum numbers in the motional degrees of freedom of the sympathetically cooled particle species. This opens up an exciting frontier of tests of fundamental physics in Penning traps. This article provides a conceptual overview as well as a quantum-mechanical description of the involved cooling dynamics. The first implementation of this technique is currently being realized at the dedicated ELCOTRAP experiment at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, which introduces special features for a quick iterative technical development cycle. Its current status, first results from commissioning, and future prospects will be presented.

DOI
10.1103/zdsy-sxcl

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Abstract Cooling of particles to mK-temperatures is essential for a variety of experiments with trapped charged particles. However, many species of interest lack suitable electronic transitions for direct laser cooling. We study theoretically the remote sympathetic cooling of a single proton with laser-cooled 9Be+ in a double-Penning-trap system. We investigate three different cooling schemes and find, based on analytical calculations and numerical simulations, that two of them are capable of achieving proton temperatures of about 10 mK with cooling times on the order of 10 s. In contrast, established methods such as feedback-enhanced resistive cooling with image-current detectors are limited to about 1 K in 100 s. Since the studied techniques are applicable to any trapped charged particle and allow spatial separation between the target ion and the cooling species, they enable a variety of precision measurements based on trapped charged particles to be performed at improved sampling rates and with reduced systematic uncertainties.
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Trapped protons cool via collisions with trapped electrons at 4 K. This first demonstration of sympathetic cooling by trapped species of opposite sign of charge utilizes a nested Penning trap. The demonstrated interaction of electrons and protons at very low relative velocities, where recombination is predicted to be most rapid, indicates that this may be a route towards the study of low temperature recombination. The production of cold antihydrogen is of particular interest, and electron cooling of highly stripped ions may also be possible.
Abstract Sympathetic laser cooling is a key concept in precision spectroscopy and quantum state control of charged particles. Significant challenges arise in the metrologically relevant case where the effective interaction between the particles is weak and the particle to be cooled exhibits significant initial motional energy. Here we specifically address the most generally applicable case where the laser-cooled ion and the particle of interest are confined to two spatially separate potential wells with equal motional frequency for resonant enhancement of the cooling dynamics. We analyze the latter through numerical simulations and find that anharmonicities of the potential wells can prevent maintaining the resonance condition throughout the cooling process and thus inhibit a significant reduction in motional energy. We propose a cooling scheme that sweeps the trapping frequency of the potential wells. We show that this scheme enables efficient cooling from cryogenic temperatures all the way to the quantum regime of motion. As a specific application scenario, we analyze the sympathetic cooling of (anti-)protons into the quantum regime of motion for quantum logic spectroscopy-based tests of charge-parity-time invariance at the quantum limit in Penning traps. Nevertheless, our results and cooling strategies are generally applicable to other laser-inaccessible ion species.