Abstract
We present a design for an atomic synchrotron consisting of 40 hybrid magnetic hexapole lenses arranged in a circle. We show that for realistic parameters, hydrogen atoms with a velocity up to 600 m s−1 can be stored in a 1 m diameter ring, which implies that the atoms can be injected in the ring directly from a pulsed supersonic beam source. This ring can be used to study collisions between stored hydrogen atoms and supersonic beams of many different atoms and molecules. The advantage of using a synchrotron is two-fold: (i) the collision partners move in the same direction as the stored atoms, resulting in a small relative velocity and thus a low collision energy, and (ii) by storing atoms for many round-trips, the sensitivity to collisions is enhanced by a factor of 100–1000. In the proposed ring, the cross-sections for collisions between hydrogen, the most abundant atom in the universe, with any atom or molecule that can be put in a beam, including He, H2, CO, ammonia and OH can be measured at energies below 100 K. We discuss the possibility of using optical transitions to load hydrogen atoms into the ring without influencing the atoms that are already stored. In this way it will be possible to reach high densities of stored hydrogen atoms.
Highlights
The ability to control the translational energy and the energy spread of a molecular beam enables collision studies that probe molecular interaction potentials in great detail [1,2,3]
For realistic parameters, a significant fraction of a supersonic beam of hydrogen atoms with a velocity of 600 m/s can be directly loaded into a 1-meter diameter ring
We have presented a design of a compact synchrotron based on 40 straight hybrid magnetic hexapole lenses that is able to store hydrogen atoms at velocities up to 600 m/s
Summary
The ability to control the translational energy and the energy spread of a molecular beam enables collision studies that probe molecular interaction potentials in great detail [1,2,3]. A holy grail of this research is to be able to observe resonances in the collision cross-section as a function of collision energy These resonances occur when the kinetic energy of two colliding molecules is converted into rotational energy as a result of the anisotropy of the potential energy surface (PES). In a different approach, trapped ions at millikelvin temperatures are monitored while a slow beam of molecules passes through the trap to study reactive ionmolecule collisions [22, 23] The advantage of this method is that the ions are stored for a long time while their number can be accurately determined, allowing the detection of reactions even when they occur at a rate of one per minute. For realistic parameters, a significant fraction of a supersonic beam of hydrogen atoms with a velocity of 600 m/s can be directly loaded into a 1-meter diameter ring
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