Sympathetic Cooling of Ionic Fullerenes with Ultracold Atoms to Millikelvin Temperatures

Abstract

Cooling complex molecular ions to millikelvin temperatures remains a major challenge because their intricate internal structures prevent laser cooling. Here, we propose to use an ultracold gas of Cd atoms to efficiently cool C$_{60}^+$ ions to average kinetic energies of approximately 20 mK, following an initial precooling stage with He buffer gas. Our approach is based on full molecular dynamics simulations using accurate ion-atom interaction potentials derived from high-level electronic structure methods. Furthermore, using a Monte Carlo approach, we predict the formation of C$_{60}^+$ Coulomb crystals supported solely by collisions with the buffer gas. The probability of reaching these cold states shows a pronounced dependence on the number of trapped ions, revealing the competition between neutral-atom cooling and many-ion dynamics in radio-frequency traps.