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Exploring the Radical Nature of a Carbon Surface by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance and a Calibrated Gas Flow
Published on: April 24, 2014
Magnetic Trapping of Cold Methyl Radicals
Yang Liu1, Manish Vashishta1, Pavle Djuricanin1
1Department of Chemistry, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1, Canada.
Abstract:
We have demonstrated that a supersonic beam of methyl radicals (CH_{3}) in the ground rotational state of both para and ortho species has been slowed down to standstill with a magnetic molecular decelerator, and successfully captured spatially in an anti-Helmholtz magnetic trap for >1 s. The trapped CH_{3} radicals have a mean translational temperature of about 200 mK with an estimated density of >5.0×10^{7} cm^{-3}. The methyl radical is an ideal system for the study of cold molecules not only because of its high reactivities at low temperatures, but also because further cooling below 1 mK is plausible via sympathetic cooling with ultracold atoms. The demonstrated trapping capability of methyl radicals opens up various possibilities for realizing ultracold ensembles of molecules towards Bose-Einstein condensation of polyatomic molecules and investigations of reactions governed by quantum statistics.
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