Optical pumping of trapped neutral molecules by blackbody radiation
  Optical pumping by blackbody radiation is a feature shared by all polar molecules and fundamentally limits the time that these molecules can be kept in a single quantum state in a trap. To demonstrate and quantify this, we have monitored the optical pumping of electrostatically trapped OH and OD radicals by room-temperature blackbody radiation. Transfer of these molecules to rotationally excited states by blackbody radiation at 295 K limits the $1/e$ trapping time for OH and OD in the $X^{2}\Pi_{3/2},v''=0,J''=3/2(f)$ state to 2.8 s and 7.1 s, respectively. 
Steven Hoekstra, Joop J. Gilijamse, Boris Sartakov, Nicolas Vanhaecke,   Ludwig Scharfenberg, Sebastiaan Y.T. van de Meerakk...