15min:

DAJUN WANG, BRIAN C. SAWYER, BENJAMIN K. STUHL, ENG HIANG YEO, JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA; BENJAMIN L. LEV, Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080, USA; JUN YE, JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA.

Using a novel magnetic quadrupole trap based on strong permanent magnets, we trap a 70 mK sample of ground-state OH molecules produced by a Stark decelerator. The trap center lies only 1 cm from the decelerator exit which enables a trapped molecule density of 10⁶ cm^-3. Our magnetoelectrostatic trap (MET) design allows for the addition of an electric field of variable magnitude to the trapped sample to facilitate polar-molecule collision studies. We report progress toward collisional studies between trapped OH molecules and different atomic and molecular beams.