ABSTRACT
As discussed in Chapters 9 through 17 of this book, diatomic molecules containing unpaired electrons have recently become of increased interest to researchers of lowtemperature gases, condensed-matter physics, precision spectroscopy, and quantum
computation. The interaction of open-shell molecules with magnetic fields allows for magnetic trapping and thermal isolation of molecular ensembles at cold and ultracold temperatures (Chapter 13), novel methods to study fundamental symmetries of nature (Chapters 15 and 16) and mechanisms to control molecular collisions externally. These and other applications of open-shell molecules stimulated the design of laboratory superconducting magnets [1], which can now generate magnetic fields of up to 6T. The experimental work on Stark deceleration of molecular beams described in Chapter 14 stimulated the development of techniques for the generation of tunable dc electric fields up to 200 kV/cm. As described in Chapter 12, dc electric fields can be used in combination with microwave laser radiation to engineer long-range interaction potentials between ultracold polar molecules confined by an optical lattice. Electric fields can also be used to confine ultracold molecules in electrostatic traps [2] and to generate cold molecules with tunable velocities [3]. Interactions with external electromagnetic fields thus play an important role in most studies of cold and ultracold molecules, both theoretical and experimental.
