Design and construction of magnetic centrifuge decelerator for atoms and molecules*

Production of ultracold atoms and molecules lays the technical foundation of new experiments in quantum information, ultracold chemistry, and precision measurements of fundamental physics. However, existing efficient techniques have hitherto limited the available species to those which are either compatible with laser deceleration or ultracold assembly techniques. To this end, we present a new approach to slow any magnetic atom or molecule in a non-inertial frame. With this method, particles are guided through a rotating spiral-shaped guide composed of cylindrical Halbach magnet arrays. The rotation of the guide provides a centrifugal potential hill to the incoming particles, decelerating them to <10 m/s. We use Monte-Carlo trajectory simulations to estimate the transmission efficiency of such a guide. In addition, we present progress towards the construction of the first prototype. This method promises to substantially expand the class of atoms and molecules that can be decelerated and trapped and opens new opportunities in a broad range of experiments using ultracold species.