Trapping and Ground-State Cooling of a Single H_{2}^{+}.

Abstract

We demonstrate co-trapping and sideband cooling of a H_{2}^{+}-^{9}Be^{+} ion pair in a cryogenic Paul trap. We study the chemical lifetime of H_{2}^{+} and its dependence on the apparatus temperature, achieving lifetimes of up to 11_{-3}^{+6} h at 10K. We demonstrate cooling of two of the modes of translational motion to an average phonon number of 0.07(1) and 0.05(1), corresponding to a temperature of 22(1) and 55(3) μK, respectively. Our results provide a basis for quantum logic spectroscopy experiments of H_{2}^{+}, as well as other light ions such as HD^{+}, H_{3}^{+}, and He^{+}.