A new method for producing ultra-cold molecular ions

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这个研究项目正在开发一种生产超冷分子离子的新技术。通过使用适当选择的超冷原子的交感冷却，分子离子的外部（平移）和内部（旋转和振动）运动都可以快速冷却。没有其他技术被证明，甚至没有提议使用这个特性。因此，与之前的建议相比，该奖项及其伴随的实验工作代表了在绝对内部和外部基态下产生超冷分子离子的极大简化方案。这项工作的早期阶段将导致更好地理解离子阱环境中超冷原子和分子离子之间量子相互作用所固有的详细统计和化学物理。一旦这些特征被理解，这项技术将被用于追求从量子化学到精确测量再到量子信息的各种应用。这个奖项将对物理和化学领域产生广泛的影响。有了生产超冷分子离子的有效手段，研究人员将能够在量子化学、天体物理学、基础物理学和量子计算等领域的前沿追求兴趣。这些目标中最值得注意的包括：冷化学的研究，这不仅对理解星际云的形成具有重要意义，而且将允许在真正的量子制度下调查和可能控制反应性碰撞；分子跃迁的精确测量，可用于非常灵敏地测量宇称违反效应，以及约束基本常数的可能变化；也许最有趣的是，一个健壮的可扩展的量子计算架构的实现。此外，在该计划下，本科生和研究生以及博士后研究人员将在原子，分子和光学物理研究方面进行培训。

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.