Accumulating NH radicals in a magnetic trap - art. no. 041401

We propose a scheme to accumulate fermionic or bosonic NH radicals ((NH)-N- 14 or (NH)-N-15, respectively) in a magnetic trap in order to increase phas e-space density. NH molecules prepared in a long-lived metastable state tha t exhibits a large Stark effect can be brought to a standstill using Stark deceleration. By applying an intense laser field, the NH radicals can then be forced to spontaneously decay to the electronic ground state. In the gro und state the NH molecules are no longer sensitive to electric fields but s how a significant Zeeman effect instead, enabling confinement and reloading of ground-state molecules in a magnetic trap.