Laser cooling of barium monofluoride

Abstract

In the first part of my talk I will report on our progress towards laser cooling of BaF molecules. Due to its high mass, resolved hyperfine structure in the excited state and branching losses through intermediate states, this molecular species is notoriously difficult to cool, but it shows high promise for various types of precision measurement applications. In the second part, I will discuss the new possibilities that bulk molecular Bose-Einstein condensates may open up for dipolar many-body physics in the near future. Building on our work on dipolar droplets and supersolids that form from weakly dipolar atoms, I will show how ultracold molecules and microwave shielding can provide fundamentally new insights into these exotic states of matter.