2022 Articles

Laser cooling scheme for the carbon dimer (12C2)

Bigagli, Niccolò; Savin, Daniel Wolf; Will, Sebastian

We report on a scheme for laser cooling of 12 C 2 . We have calculated the branching ratios for cycling and repumping transitions and calculated the number of photon scatterings required to achieve deflection and laser cooling of a beam of C 2 molecules under realistic experimental conditions. Our results demonstrate that C 2 cooling using the Swan ( d 3 Π g ↔ a 3 Π u ) and so-called Duck ( d 3 Π g ↔ c 3 Σ + u ) bands is achievable via techniques similar to state-of-the-art molecular cooling experiments. The Phillips ( A 1 Π u ↔ X 1 Σ + g ) and Ballik-Ramsay ( b 3 Σ − g ↔ a 3 Π u ) bands offer the potential for narrow-line cooling. This work opens up a path to cooling of molecules with carbon-carbon bonds and may pave the way toward quantum control of organic molecules.