Sympathetic cooled single complex molecular ions: Towards measurements of their chirality and test of quantum mechanics at macroscopic scales

Trapped, single complex molecular ions have in the past been demonstrated to be sympathetically cooled translationally to near the Doppler laser cooling limit through the Coulomb interaction with laser cooled and co-trapped single atomic ions [1]. Furthermore, sympathetic cooling of simpler molecular ions to near their motional ground have been demonstrated through resolved sideband cooling of the atomic ions [2,3]. In the near future, we plan to extent ground state cooling to complex molecular ions with the aim, among others, of measure the chirality of single molecules through a photon recoil spectroscopy version of the schemes presented in in Ref. [4]. To further illustrate the very diverse potential of ground state cooled complex molecules, an example of how to potentially test a continuous spontaneous localization model with charged macromolecules [5] will be discussed.

 

[1] K. Højbjerre et al., Phys. Rev. A 77, 030702(R) (2008).

[2] G. Poulsen, PhD thesis, Aarhus University, 2011.

[3] R. Rugango et al., New J. Phys. 17, 035009 (2015)

[4] N. V.  Vitanov and M. Drewsen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 173202 (2019).

[5] E. Lenler-Eriksen, M. Drewsen and M. Carlesso, New J. Phys. 26 113008 (2024).