Hydrodynamic Effects in Cryogenic Buffer Gas Cells: Design Insights from Hybrid Simulations
Cryogenic buffer gas beam sources have become an essential tool for experiments requiring cold molecular beams with low forward velocities. Although recent experimental advances have led to significant progress in source optimization, numerical studies remain limited due to the challenges posed by the large parameter ranges required to describe both the dense buffer gas and the dilute seed molecules. In this work, we report a numerical evaluation of cryogenic buffer gas beam cells operating in the hydrodynamic extraction regime. While most prior studies focused on box-like or cylindrical cells, we investigated hydrodynamic effects including vortex formation in a spherical cell and assessed whether these could be utilized to enhance the performance in molecule cooling and extraction. To achieve this, we performed steady-state slip-flow simulations for helium buffer gas and employed a direct-simulation Monte Carlo diffusion routine to track particle trajectories. We compared the performance of the source across different buffer gas throughputs and injection angles and identified parameter regimes where vortex formation enhances molecule extraction. From the simulations, we extracted experimental observables, which allow these effects to be verified through velocity or time-of-flight measurements on the molecular beam.