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Physical Review A

Dynamics of neutral molecules stored in a ring

Floris M. H. Crompvoets, Hendrick L. Bethlem, Jochen Küpper, André J. A. van Roij, Gerard Meijer

Published Jun 7, 2004• 30 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A decelerated beam of neutral ammonia molecules is injected into an electrostatic storage ring. Electrostatic lenses are used to map the emittance of the decelerator onto the acceptance of the ring. The tangential velocity spread of the package of molecules in the ring is set to less than $1\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}∕\mathrm{s}$. The package of molecules can be observed for more than 50 distinct round trips, corresponding to $40\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}$ in circular orbit and almost $0.5\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{s}$ storage time, sufficiently long for a first investigation of its transversal motion in the ring.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.69.063406

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A decelerated beam of neutral ammonia molecules is injected into an electrostatic storage ring. Electrostatic lenses are used to map the emittance of the decelerator onto the acceptance of the ring. The tangential velocity spread of the package of molecules in the ring is set to less than 1m∕s1\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}∕\mathrm{s}1m∕s. The package of molecules can be observed for more than 50 distinct round trips, corresponding to 40m40\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}40m in circular orbit and almost 0.5s0.5\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{s}0.5s storage time, sufficiently long for a first investigation of its transversal motion in the ring.
Using calculations and mathematical modeling, we demonstrate the feasibility of constructing a synchrotron storage ring for neutral polar molecules. The lattice is a racetrack type 3.6 m in circumference consisting of two of 180-degree arcs, six bunchers, and two long straight sections. Each straight section contains two triplet focusing lenses and space for beam injection and experiments. The design also includes a matched injector and a linear decelerator. Up to 60 bunches can be loaded and simultaneously stored in the ring. The molecules are injected at 90 m/s but the velocity of the circulating beam can be decelerated to 60 m/s after injection. The modeling uses deuterated ammonia molecules in a weak-field seeking state. Beam that survives 400 turns (15 s), has horizontal and vertical acceptances of 35 mm-mr and 70 mm-mr respectively, and an energy acceptance of plus or minus 2%.
Using calculations and mathematical modeling, we demonstrate the feasibility of constructing a synchrotron storage ring for neutral polar molecules. The lattice is a racetrack type 3.6 m in circumference consisting of two 180° arcs, six bunchers, and two long straight sections. Each straight section contains two triplet focusing lenses and space for beam injection and experiments. The design also includes a matched injector and a linear decelerator. Up to 60 bunches can be loaded and simultaneously stored in the ring. The molecules are injected at 90 m/s but the velocity of the circulating beam can be decelerated to 60 m/s after injection. The modeling uses deuterated ammonia (14N2H3) molecules in a weak-field seeking state. A beam that survives 400 turns (15 s), has horizontal and vertical acceptances of 35 and 70 mm mrad, respectively, and an energy acceptance of ±2%.
A polar molecule experiences a force in an inhomogeneous electric field. Using this force, neutral molecules can be decelerated and trapped. It is shown here that this can in principle be done without loss in phase-space density. Using a series of 64 pulsed inhomogeneous electric fields a supersonic beam of ammonia molecules (14NH3,{(}^{14}{\mathrm{NH}}_{3},(14NH3​, 14ND3,{}^{14}{\mathrm{ND}}_{3},14ND3​, 15ND3){}^{15}{\mathrm{ND}}_{3})15ND3​) is decelerated. Subsequently, the decelerated molecules are loaded into an electrostatic quadrupole trap. Densities on the order of 107molecules/cm3{10}^{7} {\mathrm{m}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{c}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^{3}107molecules/cm3 at a temperature of 25 mK are obtained for 14ND3{}^{14}{\mathrm{ND}}_{3}14ND3​ and 15ND3{}^{15}{\mathrm{ND}}_{3}15ND3​ separately and simultaneously. This corresponds to a phase-space density in the trap of $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}13},$ 50 times less than the initial phase-space density in the beam.
We report on the electrostatic trapping of neutral SrF molecules. The molecules are captured from a cryogenic buffer-gas beam source into the moving traps of a 4.5-m-long traveling-wave Stark decelerator. The SrF molecules in X^{2}Σ^{+}(v=0,N=1) state are brought to rest as the velocity of the moving traps is gradually reduced from 190 m/s to zero. The molecules are held for up to 50 ms in multiple electric traps of the decelerator. The trapped packets have a volume (FWHM) of 1 mm^{3} and a velocity spread of 5(1) m/s, which corresponds to a temperature of 60(20) mK. Our result demonstrates a factor 3 increase in the molecular mass that has been Stark decelerated and trapped. Heavy molecules (mass>100 amu) offer a highly increased sensitivity to probe physics beyond the standard model. This work significantly extends the species of neutral molecules of which slow beams can be created for collision studies, precision measurement, and trapping experiments.
The merging of molecular beam methods with those of accelerator physics has yielded new tools to manipulate the motion of molecules. Over the last few years, decelerators, lenses, bunchers, traps, and storage rings for neutral molecules have been demonstrated. Molecular beams with a tunable velocity and with a tunable width of the velocity distribution can now be produced, and are expected to become a valuable tool in a variety of physical chemistry and chemical physics experiments. Here we present a compact molecular beam machine, capable of producing 3D spatially focused packets of state-selected accelerated or decelerated molecules.