Experiments with cold, electrostatically trapped Rydberg molecules

In this project, state-of-the-art, cryogenically cooled, chip-based decelerators and electric traps will be exploited to prepare cold gas-phase samples of nitric oxide molecules in highly excited quantum states known as Rydberg states.

The first phase of the project work will involve studies in the time domain of the evolution and slow spontaneous decay of the quantum states populated in these excited molecular samples. This will then be followed by investigations of the effects of blackbody radiation and low-energy collisions with other ground-state molecules on these decay processes. In this second main phase of the project emphasis will be placed on probing effects of long-range electric dipole interactions and short-range ion-molecule reactions. Experimental studies of these types of interactions with cold molecules in high Rydberg states are at present of particular interest.