Interaction of a supersonic NO beam with static and resonant RF fields: Simple theoretical model to account for molecular interferences

In previous experimental works from this laboratory two unexpected phenomena were reported: (i) a depletion of ca. 40% in the total intensity of a pulsed He seeded NO beam when these molecules passed a homogeneous and a resonant oscillating RF electric field and (ii) a beam splitting of ca. 0.5° when the transverse beam profile is measured, under the same experimental conditions. In this work a model based on molecular beam interferences is introduced which satisfactorily accounts for these two observations. It is shown how the experimental set-up a simple device used as C-field in early molecular beam electric resonance experiments, can be employed as molecular interferometer to investigate matter-wave interferences in beams of polar molecules.