Parity-doublet coherence times in optically trapped polyatomic molecules.

Abstract

Polyatomic molecules provide complex internal structures that are ideal for applications in quantum information science¹, quantum simulation^2-4 and precision searches for physics beyond the standard model^5-9. A key feature of polyatomic molecules is the presence of parity-doublet states. These structures, which generically arise from the rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom afforded by polyatomic molecules, are a powerful feature to pursue diverse quantum science applications⁷. Linear triatomic molecules contain ℓ-type parity-doublet states in the vibrational bending mode, which are predicted to exhibit robust coherence properties. Here we report optically trapped CaOH molecules prepared in ℓ-type parity-doublet states and realize a bare qubit coherence time of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><msubsup><mi>T</mi> <mn>2</mn> <mo>*</mo></msubsup> <mo>=</mo> <mn>0.8</mn> <mrow><mo>(</mo> <mn>2</mn> <mo>)</mo></mrow> <mspace></mspace> <mi>s</mi></math> , which is longer than the 0.36 s lifetime of the bending mode^10,11. We suppress differential Stark shifts by cancelling ambient electric fields using molecular spectroscopy and characterize parity-dependent trap shifts, which are found to limit the coherence time. The parity-doublet coherence times achieved in this work are a defining milestone for the use of polyatomic molecules in quantum science.