Polyatomic candidates for cooling of molecules with lasers from simple theoretical concepts

Abstract

A rational approach to identify polyatomic molecules that appear to be promising candidates for direct Doppler cooling with lasers is outlined. First-principle calculations for equilibrium structures and Franck--Condon factors of selected representatives with different point-group symmetries (including chiral non-symmetric group C$_1$) have been performed and high potential for laser-cooling of these molecules is indicated.Comment: Updated version includes corrected data and results are represented in a new way (new figures with graphical representation of FC factors, tables moved between MS and supplementary material etc). Updated version is in large parts adapted to the MS published in PRL (http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.063006 (c) 2016 American Physical Society