Towards high phase density and collisional studies of a ⁸⁸Sr¹⁹F molecular gas

Equipped with rich internal levels, long coherence times, and strong electric dipole-dipole interactions, ultracold polar molecules have emerged as a promising platform for quantum simulation, quantum chemistry and precision measurements of fundamental physics. Realizing quantum degeneracy enhances the studies of these novel phenomena. The usual approach to achieving degeneracy involves evaporative cooling, making it critical to understand collisional properties of molecules. Following our previous work studying collisions of SrF molecules in the N = 1 state (N being the rotational quantum number), here we describe our progress towards transferring SrF molecules to the absolute ground state (N = 0) and measuring the corresponding collision rates. We also describe progress towards an improved laser slowing scheme that utilizes a push beam and transverse cooling, each of which could yield a factor of 10x increase in the number of trapped molecules. This increase in number, and corresponding increase in phase space density, should enable evaporative cooling of SrF, paving the way towards realizing a Bose-condensed gas of SrF molecules.