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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Optical pumping of trapped neutral molecules by blackbody radiation
Steven Hoekstra1, Joop J Gilijamse, Boris Sartakov
1Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
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)Pi(3/2), v" =0, J"=3/2(f) state to 2.8 and 7.1 s, respectively.
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