When a proton meets a hydrogen atom, the pair can emit a photon and stay together as H₂⁺.
This is how the first molecules formed after the Big Bang, and it is one of the proposed routes to the first antimatter molecule, yet it has never been measured.
In the NWO Vidi project SAMURAI, you will study these collisions one quantum state at a time: instead of colliding atoms, we use lasers to prepare a hydrogen molecule at the moment of a collision and watch it fall apart.
You will be part of a small group in which experiment and theory go hand in hand.
Your duties • excite H₂ with two tunable extreme-ultraviolet lasers (60–205 nm), built in our lab and unique in the Netherlands, and image the fragments with velocity-map imaging • aim for the first spectroscopic observation of the excited electronic states of H₂⁺, calculated by Edward Teller in his PhD thesis in 1930 and never seen since • trap H₂⁺ ions and use millimetre waves and magnetic fields to control how they come apart • work towards the first measurement of radiative association: joining a cold proton and a cold hydrogen atom with light, next to a crystal of laser-cooled Be⁺ ions • compare your data with multichannel quantum-defect theory and scattering calculations, and contribute to the theory yourself if you like • develop your skills in lasers and nonlinear optics, ultrahigh vacuum, electronics, CAD design and scientific programming • present your results at international conferences and publish them in peer-reviewed journals