Precision spectroscopy and laser-cooling scheme of a radium-containing molecule
Name
RaF_226_Nature_MIT_library.pdf
Description
Author’s final manuscript
Size
6.5 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
160fb6c262bc1923572bd723138e17d4
Author(s)
Udrescu, S. M.
Wilkins, S. G.
Breier, A. A.
Athanasakis-Kaklamanakis, M.
Garcia Ruiz, R. F.
Au, M.
Belošević, I.
Berger, R.
Bissell, M. L.
Binnersley, C. L.
Date Issued
January 9, 2024
Journal
Nature Physics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Udrescu, S.M., Wilkins, S.G., Breier, A.A. et al. Precision spectroscopy and laser-cooling scheme of a radium-containing molecule. Nat. Phys. (2024).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Molecules containing heavy radioactive nuclei are predicted to be extremely sensitive to violations of the fundamental symmetries of nature. The nuclear octupole deformation of certain radium isotopes massively boosts the sensitivity of radium monofluoride molecules to symmetry-violating nuclear properties. Moreover, these molecules are predicted to be laser coolable. Here we report measurements of the rovibronic structure of radium monofluoride molecules, which allow the determination of their laser cooling scheme. We demonstrate an improvement in resolution of more than two orders of magnitude compared to the state of the art. Our developments allowed measurements of minuscule amounts of hot molecules, with only a few hundred per second produced in a particular rotational state. The combined precision and sensitivity achieved in this work offer opportunities for studies of radioactive molecules of interest in fundamental physics, chemistry and astrophysics.
Subjects
General Physics and Astronomy
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02296-w
