Novel optical cooling methods for atoms and molecules

Established optical cooling methods, employed in such traps as magneto-optical traps and optical molasses, work by means of a closed optical transition involving the absorption and spontaneous emission of large numbers of photons by each atom. This technique, therefore, cannot be extended to species-such as molecules-which, in general, do not have closed optical transitions. Finally, the lack of any requirement for having a closed optical transition implies that this method for cooling atoms may also be applicable to cooling molecules