Sisyphus laser cooling of a triatomic SrOH molecular beam

What changed

Kozyryev and colleagues used Sisyphus laser cooling to reduce the sideways motion of a beam of strontium monohydroxide, a molecule containing three atoms. They used vibrational repumping and changed the laser detuning to distinguish cooling from heating. The 2016 author preprint gives an estimated final transverse temperature of about 700 microkelvin; the 2017 published article gives about 750 microkelvin.

Scientific scope

Kozyryev and colleagues used Sisyphus laser cooling to reduce the sideways motion of a beam of strontium monohydroxide, a molecule containing three atoms. They used vibrational repumping and changed the laser detuning to distinguish cooling from heating. The 2016 author preprint gives an estimated final transverse temperature of about 700 microkelvin; the 2017 published article gives about 750 microkelvin. Both estimates concern a moving beam in one transverse dimension, not a three-dimensional molecular trap. The temperature and approximate photon count depend on the authors’ simulations and calibration. The difference between the preprint and published article is shown explicitly; these are versions of one contribution.

Evidence

The linked original works support the scoped statement and contribution attribution. WRS has not independently replayed experiments or reconstructed a full mathematical proof. Both estimates concern a moving beam in one transverse dimension, not a three-dimensional molecular trap. The temperature and approximate photon count depend on the authors’ simulations and calibration. The difference between the preprint and published article is shown explicitly; these are versions of one contribution.

Contributors

• The named authors in the research record · SCIENCE: These are the source-listed authors of this specific paper. Individual effort, author nationality and unresolved cross-record identities are not inferred.

• Sisyphus laser cooling of a polyatomic molecule (author preprint, version 1)
• Sisyphus Laser Cooling of a Polyatomic Molecule (Physical Review Letters, 2017)

Provisional WRS assessment, edition 2026-10-27.2. Independent expert calibration is pending. This grade does not certify correctness or assign ownership.

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