Volume 3 Issue 2, February 2007
A comprehensive toolbox has been developed over the past few years for electrostatically manipulating the motion of molecules and for storing them. One advance was the construction of a storage ring for neutral polar molecules. Confining particles in rings rather than traps (as is common in atomic physics) is useful because, for example, circulating particles can be made to interact repeatedly with electric fields and with other particles at well-defined times and locations. However, keeping the molecules in bunches as they circulate — rather than allowing them to occupy the entire ring — remained a challenge, hindering the full exploitation of the approach. Cynthia Heiner et al. now report the construction and operation of a molecular synchrotron in which bunches are maintained — the first synchrotron for neutral particles.
Editorial
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