Laser spectroscopy of molecular clusters/Torsion mediated IVR/molecule cooling

这项建议将资助一项研究计划，该计划将解决目前化学物理中悬而未决的重要问题。它由三个部分组成。 第一部分的重点是对弱分子间力的定量测量，这对于理解气体中的碰撞效应、分子簇、凝聚/拯救过程和分子间的能量转移等许多方面都是至关重要的。这些分子间作用力可以通过高分辨率光谱的方法直接和精确地探测。这些结果对弱力的量子化学计算提出了挑战，从而有助于推动该理论的发展。反过来，该理论可以用于对具有生物学意义的大系统的计算，比如蛋白质折叠。 第二部分涉及分子中甲基(CH3)的大振幅扭曲以及能量如何从甲基转移到分子的其余部分。解决这些基本物理问题的兴趣与这样一个事实有关，即甲基存在于许多在生物环境中活跃的较大分子中，正是这些基团的大幅度运动决定了这些系统的结构、动力学性质和功能。 最后，第三部分的目标是研究生产和存储超冷分子样品的可行性，以研究远程集体量子效应、超冷化学及其对量子计算的适用性。

This proposal will fund a research program which will tackle important problems in chemical physics outstanding at the present time. It comprises of three parts. The focus of the first part is quantitative measurement of weak intermolecular forces which are vital for understanding many aspects of collisional effects in gases, molecular clustering, condensation/salvation processes and energy transfer between molecules. These intermolecular forces can be directly and precisely probed by means of high-resolution spectroscopy. These results provide a challenge to quantum chemical calculations of weak forces, which thereby helps to advance the state of the theory. The theory in turn can be used for calculations on large systems of biological significance, like protein folding. The second part is concerned with large amplitude twisting of methyl groups (CH3) in molecules and how energy is transferred from the methyl groups to the rest of the molecule. The interest in resolving such basic physical questions relates to the fact that methyl groups are present in many larger molecules that are active in biological environments and it is the large amplitude motion of these groups that determine the structure, dynamical properties and functions of these systems. Finally, objective of the third part is to investigate the feasibility of producing and storing ultra-cold samples of molecules to study long range collective quantum effects, ultra-cold chemistry and their suitability for quantum computation.