Abstract
We report on the rotational-state-dependent, transverse acceleration of molecules affected by pulsed optical standing waves. The steep gradient of the standing wave potential imparts far stronger dipole forces on the molecules than propagating pulses do. Moreover, large changes in the transverse velocities (i.e., up to ) obtained with the standing waves are well reproduced in numerical simulations using the effective polarizability that depends on the molecular rotational states. Our analysis based on the rotational-state-dependent effective polarizability can therefore serve as a basis for developing a new technique of state selection for both polar and nonpolar molecules.
- Received 14 July 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.223001
© 2015 American Physical Society