A new method for producing ultra-cold molecular ions

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This research program is developing a new technique for the production of ultracold molecular ions. By utilizing sympathetic cooling with appropriately chosen ultracold atoms, both the molecular ion's external (translational) and internal (rotational and vibrational) motions can be quickly cooled. No other technique has been demonstrated, or even proposed, with this feature. Therefore, this award, and its accompanying experimental effort, represents a dramatically simplified scheme for producing ultracold molecular ions in their absolute internal and external ground state as compared to previous proposals. The early stages of this work will result in a better understanding of the detailed statistical and chemical physics inherent to the quantum interactions between ultracold atoms and molecular ions in the ion trap environment. Once these features are understood, the technique will be used to pursue applications ranging from quantum chemistry to precision measurement to quantum information.This award will have a broad impact to the fields of physics and chemistry. With an efficient means of producing ultracold molecular ions, researchers would be able to pursue interests at the leading edge of fields as diverse as quantum chemistry, astrophysics, fundamental physics, and quantum computation. The most noteworthy of these goals include: the study of cold chemistry, which not only has important implications for understanding the formation of interstellar clouds, but will allow for investigation, and possible control, of reactive collisions in the truly quantum regime; precision measurement of molecular transitions, which can be used to very sensitively measure parity violating effects, as well as constrain the possible variation of the fundamental constants; and, perhaps most interestingly, the implementation of a robust scalable, quantum computation architecture. Furthermore, under this program both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers will be trained in atomic, molecular, and optical physics research.