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Optical pumping of trapped neutral molecules by blackbody radiation

Steven Hoekstra·Joop J. Gilijamse·Boris Sartakov·Nicolas Vanhaecke·Ludwig Scharfenberg·Sebastiaan Y. T. van de Meerakker·Gerard Meijer
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Abstract

Optical pumping by blackbody radiation is a feature shared by all polar molecules and fundamentally limits the time that these molecules can be kept in a single quantum state in a trap. To demonstrate and quantify this, we have monitored the optical pumping of electrostatically trapped OH and OD radicals by room-temperature blackbody radiation. Transfer of these molecules to rotationally excited states by blackbody radiation at 295 K limits the $1/e$ trapping time for OH and OD in the $X^{2}Π_{3/2},v''=0,J''=3/2(f)$ state to 2.8 s and 7.1 s, respectively.

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Steven Hoekstra, Joop J. Gilijamse, Boris Sartakov, Nicolas Vanhaecke, Ludwig Scharfenberg, Sebastiaan Y. T. van de Meerakker, Gerard Meijer. 2007-04-02. Optical pumping of trapped neutral molecules by blackbody radiation. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.98.133001

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