Absolute cooling rates of freely decaying fullerenes

• The cooling rates of C$_{60}^-$ have been measured in an electrostatic storage ring between several hundred $\mu$s and several tens of ms with one-photon laser excitation. The absolute energy scale is established by the photon energy and the cooling time interval is derived from the non-exponential decay of the ensemble of hot molecules. The energy decreases due to the combined action of depletion and thermal emission of IR photons with a total energy loss rate that varies inversely proportional to time, 0.9 eV$\cdot 1/t$. The radiative component decreases from a few hundred eV/s at sub ms timescales to several tens of eV/s at 20 ms and confirms that the crossover from depletion to predominantly radiative cooling occurs around 5 ms. The method is applicable to any large molecule or cluster which decays spontaneously, irrespective of the specific decay channel.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Atom- och molekylfysik och optik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Stability and fragmentation of clusters

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