Spectroscopy of dysprosium monoxide for optical cycling, cooling, and trapping

Production of trapped, ultracold molecules has enabled new directions in precision measurement and quantum science including studies of quantum chemistry, quantum simulation, fundamental symmetry violation, and probes of dark matter. However, only molecules that fit into a handful of structural motifs have been trapped at ultracold temperatures to date. In this poster, we present our work exploring dysprosium monoxide (DyO) molecules, which possess large electric and magnetic dipole moments as well as large electronic angular momentum in the ground state, as a unique platform for quantum science. We present measurements of the vibrational branching fractions from several excited electronic states, which may be used for optical cycling to achieve efficient state preparation, trapping, cooling, and detection. In addition, we report the first hyperfine- and isotope-shift-resolved spectroscopy of DyO. These studies establish a concrete pathway toward achieving a trap of ultracold DyO molecules for measurements of the Dy-161 nuclear Schiff moment, a sensitive probe of time-reversal violation in the hadronic sector.