Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Ultracold molecule research has grown explosively in the last five years as a natural extension of ultracold atom research, which began more than 25 years ago based on the technological breakthroughs in laser cooling. Ultracold atoms below 1 micro-kelvin (uK), completely novel states of matter, have been proved to offer new possibilities in studying a wide range of fundamental problems in physics. It is now widely accepted that ultracold molecules possess significantly better potential than ultracold atoms to address various problems in fundamental and applied sciences in both physics and chemistry. They range from test of fundamental symmetry in nature to interstellar chemistry, as well as application to quantum computation. Ensembles of ultracold molecules are therefore a treasury of new frontiers in both chemistry and physics, completely unavailable by any other means. Since it is still difficult to create cold molecular gases below 1 K, the primary focus of our research is on the development of a new technique of making ultracold molecules, having a broad range of applications of cold molecules in mind. In this project, we will construct a liquid helium liqueifier and its recovery system, which are essential and indispensable tools to build apparatuses for making ultracold molecular gases. Liquid helium produced by the system will be used for the pre-cooling of molecules, which will follow an optical cooling of molecules based on our original idea to achieve temperature of molecules at 1 uK. In addition, the proposed system is designed to keep radiation shields of the apparatus at 4.2 K all the time with minimum loss of novel helium gases in order to avoid warming of ultracold molecules by blackbody radiations. Currently, UBC does not posseses its own liquefier, so the construction of a helium liquefier system is indispensable to challenge the ultracold molecule research at UBC. Without the system, it is not possible to make breakthroughs in the creation of ultracold molecules to obtain initiative in this emerging research field. The requested funding would enable research on cold systems at UBC efficiently, and would make UBC a leading center in the world for the study of ultracold molecules.