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Decelerating, trapping, and cooling of SrF for fundamental precision measurements

Sreekanth Chirayath Mathavan, Joost van den Berg, Jacoba Roelien Meinema, Tomas Nijbroek, Klaus Peter Jungmann, Lorenz Willmann, Steven Hoekstra

Published Jan 1, 2013• 0 citations
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Deceleration of a Supersonic Beam of SrF Molecules

Sreekanth Chirayath Mathavan

The work depicted in this thesis demonstrate the successful operation of a 4 meter long traveling-wave Stark decelerator. This is a novel tool for deceleration of heavy diatomic molecules to arbitrarily slow beams with a very small velocity spread which can serve as ideal starting point for precision tests of fundamental physics. The first part of the thesis discusses the characterization of a new Supersonic beam source for creation of SrF molecules which serves as an ideal candidate for precision test of nuclear spin dependent parity violation. The later part of the thesis discusses the the results of deceleration of a SrF molecules in the N = 1 rotation state of the SrF(v = 0) electronic ground state from a supersonic beam with an initial velocity of 340 m/s to 265 m/s using a deceleration potential with 3.25 k V voltage amplitude using a the 4 m long traveling-wave decelerator built in our research lab. Increasing the voltage amplitude of the potential to 4.8 kV, we were able to decelerate molecules from 340 m/s to 250 m/s which corresponds to a deceleration strength of 6.6 km /s2. By cooling the valve by flushing cold nitrogen gas through the valve enclosure we were able to decrease the initial velocity of the supersonic beam. With the valve cooled to ~190 K, we demonstrated deceleration of SrF molecules from 290 m/s to 120 m/s which corresponds to the removal of almost 85% of the initial kinetic energy. The thesis described the operation of the decelerator and end with an outlook for precision tests using this novel tool.

•Jun 13, 2023•0 citations

Production, deceleration and trapping of SrF molecules

Parul Aggarwal

Permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs) are signatures of time-reversal and parity violation and act as sensitive probes for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). The work in this thesis has been done as part of the NL-eEDM collaboration, which plans to measure the electron EDM using a beam of BaF molecules. The sensitivity of such a table-top precision experiment benefits from utilizing an intense, slow beam of molecules. We plan to achieve that through a combination of Stark deceleration and transverse laser cooling of a cryogenic beam of BaF. The work presented in this thesis has primarily been done to produce intense, slow molecular beams for an electron EDM measurement. We constructed a supersonic beam source of SrF and BaF molecules. The source produces high intensity beams with low translational and rotational temperatures. Time-resolved detection of laser-induced fluorescence from pulsed excitation of electronic states in BaF molecules was performed to determine the lifetimes of the A^{2}Pi_{1/2} and A^{2}Pi_{3/2} states. The lifetimes of these states were determined to be 57.1(3) ns and 47.9(7) ns, respectively. The transition between the A^{2}Pi_{1/2} and X^{2}Sigma^{+} states is the main laser cooling transition in BaF. We decelerated a beam of SrF molecules from a cryogenic source to a standstill inside a traveling-wave Stark decelerator, with the number of decelerated molecules on the order of 1000. BaF molecules will be decelerated with the same technique to perform an electron EDM measurement.

•Aug 6, 2021•2 citations
The work depicted in this thesis demonstrate the successful operation of a 4 meter long traveling-wave Stark decelerator. This is a novel tool for deceleration of heavy diatomic molecules to arbitrarily slow beams with a very small velocity spread which can serve as ideal starting point for precision tests of fundamental physics. The first part of the thesis discusses the characterization of a new Supersonic beam source for creation of SrF molecules which serves as an ideal candidate for precision test of nuclear spin dependent parity violation. The later part of the thesis discusses the the results of deceleration of a SrF molecules in the N = 1 rotation state of the SrF(v = 0) electronic ground state from a supersonic beam with an initial velocity of 340 m/s to 265 m/s using a deceleration potential with 3.25 k V voltage amplitude using a the 4 m long traveling-wave decelerator built in our research lab. Increasing the voltage amplitude of the potential to 4.8 kV, we were able to decelerate molecules from 340 m/s to 250 m/s which corresponds to a deceleration strength of 6.6 km /s2. By cooling the valve by flushing cold nitrogen gas through the valve enclosure we were able to decrease the initial velocity of the supersonic beam. With the valve cooled to ~190 K, we demonstrated deceleration of SrF molecules from 290 m/s to 120 m/s which corresponds to the removal of almost 85% of the initial kinetic energy. The thesis described the operation of the decelerator and end with an outlook for precision tests using this novel tool.
Permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs) are signatures of time-reversal and parity violation and act as sensitive probes for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). The work in this thesis has been done as part of the NL-eEDM collaboration, which plans to measure the electron EDM using a beam of BaF molecules. The sensitivity of such a table-top precision experiment benefits from utilizing an intense, slow beam of molecules. We plan to achieve that through a combination of Stark deceleration and transverse laser cooling of a cryogenic beam of BaF. The work presented in this thesis has primarily been done to produce intense, slow molecular beams for an electron EDM measurement. We constructed a supersonic beam source of SrF and BaF molecules. The source produces high intensity beams with low translational and rotational temperatures. Time-resolved detection of laser-induced fluorescence from pulsed excitation of electronic states in BaF molecules was performed to determine the lifetimes of the A^{2}Pi_{1/2} and A^{2}Pi_{3/2} states. The lifetimes of these states were determined to be 57.1(3) ns and 47.9(7) ns, respectively. The transition between the A^{2}Pi_{1/2} and X^{2}Sigma^{+} states is the main laser cooling transition in BaF. We decelerated a beam of SrF molecules from a cryogenic source to a standstill inside a traveling-wave Stark decelerator, with the number of decelerated molecules on the order of 1000. BaF molecules will be decelerated with the same technique to perform an electron EDM measurement.