A new route for laser cooling and trapping of cold molecules: Intensity-gradient cooling of MgF molecules using localized hollow beams

Abstract

Abstract We propose a promising scheme to prepare ultracold MgF molecules from a slowed cold molecular beam by using three-dimensional pure intensity-gradient induced Sisyphus cooling. The cooling is based on a blue-detuned localized hollow beam and a weak repumping beam. We investigate the dynamic process in the trap with the method of the Monte-Carlo simulations, verifying the feasibility. Our results show that achieving sub-Doppler temperature should be possible in such a well-designed trap; the trapped MgF molecules with initial temperature of 1 mK can be directly cooled to the final equilibrium temperature of about 46.5 μ K , well below the Doppler limit (about 527.9 μ K for MgF); meanwhile, molecules with initial temperature of 14 mK can be even cooled to about 68.7 μ K .