Fig. 3

Time-of-flight (TOF) profiles of OH radicals recorded 11.5 mm downstream from the exit of the Stark decelerator using (a) Xe and (b) Kr as carrier gas. The synchronous velocity was set to the mean velocity of the initial OH beam. The phase angles for deceleration and resulting final velocities of the OH package exiting the Stark decelerator are indicated for each experiment. The dark solid lines (upper traces) are the experimental results and the light solid lines (lower traces) represent Monte-Carlo trajectory simulations of the experiments. All traces are normalized to the signal obtained in guiding mode (Φ ₀ = 0, insets) using Kr as a carrier gas. The scales of (a) and (b) are identical. The insets of (a) and (b) depict the guiding signal when the Stark decelerator is operated with Φ ₀ = 0. In the simulations, the contributions from both M _J Ω=−9/4 and M _J Ω=−3/4 low-field-seeking states were taken into account