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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 23: Cold Molecules (joint session MO/Q)
Q 23.7: Talk
Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 12:45–13:00, P 105
Theory and experiments towards laser cooling of NH — •Daniel Roesch — TU Dortmund, Germany
Laser cooling of atoms is a well-established technique to reach very low temperatures and to generate degenerate quantum gases. Due to their more complex internal structure, molecules are much harder to laser cool. However, laser cooling of CaF, SrF, YO, YbF, BaF, AlF and SrOH has already been demonstrated and many other molecules are currently under investigation. We are working on laser cooling of 15NH. This is a challenging molecule for laser cooling. While its light mass and cooling transition in the UV give rise to large momentum transfer for each absorbed photon, a long lifetime of the excited state and resulting narrow transition are posing considerable challenges. I will present results of hyperfine state resolved laser-induced fluorescence experiments on the cooling transition A3Π0← X3Σ− for 15NH as well as high resolution THz spectroscopy probing the X3Σ−, N=1 ← X3Σ−, N=0 rotational transition in the ground state. In addition to the experimental spectroscopy results I will also present results from laser cooling simulations using the pyLCP python package and machine learning optimization of laser cooling parameters.
Keywords: laser cooling; pyLCP; THz spectroscopy; LIF spectroscopy