Ultracold molecules are the next frontier of quantum science: Their rich internal structure and tunable long-range interactions enable the exploration of new regimes, unattainable with atomic platforms.
However, interactions in ultracold molecular gases are dominated by lossy chemical reactions, that hamper the development of ultracold molecular quantum science.
The overarching goal of this project is the development of new experimental methods for taming ultracold chemistry. A high-finesse optical cavity will be the fulcrum to achieve this goal. Strong light-molecule coupling will create new hybrid light-molecule states, so called molecular polaritons, that will display the ability to turn on-and-off a chemical reaction by simply controlling the molecule-cavity resonance thus unlocking the full potential of molecular gases.