ALP Seminar: Laser-cooled molecules for many-body physics and precision measurements

I will report on two lines of research that we are pursuing with laser-coolable molecules. 

First, I will report on the cooling of barium monofluoride (BaF) molecules, a challenging molecular species with many applications in precision measurement science. By carefully choosing the transitions involved in the laser cooling, we efficiently collimate a molecular beam of this species. Moreover, we also demonstrate the first isotopologue-selective laser cooling of molecules, selectively addressing both the 138BaF and 136BaF isotopologues in the same molecular beam. Our results are an important step towards slowing and trapping of BaF molecules, and will also be useful for cooling other molecular species with complex level structure.

Second, I will review our efforts to better understand the exotic supersolid state of matter. Having previously observed such a supersolid with weakly magnetic atoms, we have recently started to theoretically investigate its properties in the strongly-interacting limit. Our approach uses realistic molecular interactions and goes well beyond the limits of the established effective mean-field theories for dipolar quantum gases. It reveals supersolids and small droplets produced by strong dipolar interactions outside known stable regimes. Finally, I will outline our experimental effort to explore these theoretical predictions using laser-cooled calcium monofluoride (CaF) molecules.