POLAR MOLECULES NEAR QUANTUM DEGENERACY
This work is supported by NIST, NSF, the Keck Foundation, and DOE.
The advent of a quantum degenerate gas of ground-state polar molecules opens the door to a wide range of scientific explorations. Novel molecular interactions, quantum-controlled chemical reactions, exotic phase transitions and strongly correlated states of matter are among a few prominent examples to be studied. We discuss recent experimental progresses at JILA, including the production of a high-density gas of ultracold KRb polar molecules in their absolute rovibrational ground state, coherent manipulations of the nuclear spin degrees of freedom, observations of barrier-less chemical reactions with the associated rates controlled by pure long-range, quantum mechanical effects, and control of inelastic and elastic collision cross sections via the tuning of the molecular dipole moment.
