Work

Full confirmation of icosahedral Bose-Einstein statistics in cold C 60 12

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The quantum mechanical nature of high icosahedral symmetry, spherical top molecules, such as C 60 12 , is particularly evident at low total angular momentum quantum number J . However, the small rotational constant of such large molecules leads to the most populated levels having hundreds of rotational quanta even at modest temperatures, making transitions from low- J states challenging to observe. We combine a laser desorption C 60 source with helium buffer gas cooling to achieve the lowest temperature of 30 K to date, enabling the observation of R ( J < 30 ) in the 8.4 µ m rovibrational band of C 60 12 . Based on the absence of 15 transitions due to the exchange statistics of 60 identical spin-0 nuclei, we place an upper limit of 1.4 ( 5 ) × 10 − 8 on possible violations of the Bose-Einstein statistics, offering improvements over previous studies that considered only one missing line in molecular systems with two identical bosonic nuclei (e.g., O 2 16 and C 12 O 2 16 ).

Source: Physical Review Research

DOI: 10.1103/3fjd-lwkd

Authors: Ya-Chu Chan, Lee R. Liu, Andrew Scheck, David J. Nesbitt, Jun Ye, Dina Rosenberg

Institution: University of Colorado Boulder

Language: English

Topic: Molecular Spectroscopy and Structure

Subfield: Spectroscopy

Field: Chemistry

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,625