Vibrational and rotational cooling dynamics of the triatomic molecular ion N2O+ stored in RICE

Synopsis We studied radiative cooling dynamics of the triatomic molecular ion N2O+ stored in RICE. We observed the evolution of the populations at vibrational and rotational levels up to several 100 s by measuring neutral fragments from the laser-induced predissociation process. We found clear evidence of radiative cooling of the vibrational level populations with a time constant of several seconds. In contrast, absence of significant changes in the rotational levels revealed that the time scale of the rotational cooling is far longer, which is consistent to our simulation.