Interplay between Theoretical Quantum Chemistry and Cold Atom Experiments

Alejandro González-Tudela

Alejandro González-Tudela

Arne Härter, Johannes Hecker Denschlag

In the last five years, a novel field of physics and chemistry has developed in which cold trapped ions and ultracold atomic gases are brought into contact with each other. Combining ion traps with traps for neutral atoms yields a variety of new possibilities for research and experiments. These range from studies of cold atom–ion collisions and atom–ion chemistry to applications in quantum information science and condensed matter related research. In this article we give a brief introduction into this new field and describe some of the perspectives for its future development.

Steven Chu

Etay Lavert-Ofir, Sasha Gersten, Alon Henson +4 more

We present an experimental realization of a moving magnetic trap decelerator, where paramagnetic particles entrained in a cold supersonic beam are decelerated in a co-moving magnetic trap.Our method allows for an efficient slowing down of both paramagnetic atoms and molecules to near stopping velocities.We show that under realistic conditions we will be able to trap and decelerate a large fraction of the initial supersonic beam.We present our first results on deceleration in a moving magnetic trap by bringing metastable neon atoms to near rest.Our estimated phase space volume occupied by decelerated particles at a final velocity of 50 m s -1 shows an improvement of two orders of magnitude as compared to currently available deceleration techniques.Cold chemistry (at temperature of ∼1 K) is a fast developing field with many interesting theoretical predictions yet only a few experiments [1][2][3][4].It has been predicted that in the cold chemistry regime, reactions might proceed through resonance states [5] and both reaction rate and path could be controlled [6] via external magnetic or electrostatic fields.Low-temperature chemistry is not limited to artificially created conditions alone but occurs naturally at the low temperature of interstellar space [7] and the atmospheres of remote planets and moons [8].It is anticipated that cold chemistry will follow the enormous progress in molecular chemistry that was spurred by the advent of supersonic beams more than half a century ago [9].However, the progress in experimental cold chemistry is rather slow partly due to the absence of a general method of atomic and molecular cooling.Although the low-temperature environment created within a supersonic expansion has been used to observe many reactions [10], a direct 1 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.