Towards a Magnetic Centrifuge Decelerator for Atoms and Molecules

Deceleration of atoms and molecules plays a pivotal role as the first step in modern technologies of quantum control and metrology. Typical radiative deceleration methods, however, rely on species-specific laser cycling schemes that are costly and often intractable for atoms and molecules with complex energy structures. Electrostatic centrifuge deceleration, where a rotating electric guide decelerates species as they navigate towards the axis of rotation, has been previously demonstrated on several molecular species incompatible with radiative slowing. We here present an alternative magnetostatic centrifuge decelerator constructed of permanent magnet guides. The change to magnetic trapping forces opens the possibility of deceleration to any species with a magnetic moment and greatly reduces technical complexity. We show preliminary decelerator design, progress on construction, and numerical simulations. Our results thus far imply that magnetic centrifuge deceleration is capable of slowing species ranging from mass 1 (hydrogen) to mass around 250 (e.g. ThO and RaOCH3), and is therefore a truly generic deceleration method.