Optical dipole-force cooling of anions in a Penning trap

We discuss the possibility of using optical dipole forces for Sisyphus cooling of ions stored in a Penning trap by addressing the specific case of the molecular cooling candidate C-2(-). Using a GPU accelerated code for Penning trap simulations, which we extended to include the molecule-light interaction, we show that this scheme can decrease the time required for cooling by an order of magnitude with respect to Doppler cooling. In our simulation we found that a reduction of the axial anion temperature from 10 K to 50 mK in around 10 s is possible. The temperature of the radial degrees of freedom was seen to thermalize to 150 mK. Based on the laser-cooled C-2(-), a study on the sympathetic cooling of anions with masses 1-50 nucleonwas performed, covering relevant candidates for investigations of chemical anion reactions at ultracold temperatures as well as for antimatter studies.