Reactive Collisions and Interactions of Ultracold Dipolar Atoms

Abstract

We explored Feshbach resonances in the collision between ultracold highly-magnetic dysprosium and erbium atoms. The resonance density is orders of magnitude larger than seen in any other previously studied atomic system. Moreover, we showed that these resonance can only exist because of the anisotropic nature of the atom-atom potentials. Analysis of nearest-neighbor spacings between Feshbach resonances shows a chaotic distribution that one would expect from random-matrix theory. We explained these statistics as originating from the large strength of the anisotropy. We demonstrated that the vibrational motion of BaCl+ molecules is quenched by collisions with ultracold calcium atoms at a rate comparable to the Langevin rate. This is over four orders of magnitude more efficient than traditional sympathetic cooling schemes. In addition, we calculated the electronic structure of BaCl+ and other molecular ions. Based on these results we found unusually-large rates for cold charge-transfer reactions between neutral and ionic atoms.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 29, 2014
Accession Number
ADA610935

Entities

People

  • Svetlana Kotochigova

Organizations

  • Temple University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Angular Momentum
  • Atoms
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Dissociation
  • Experimental Data
  • Ground State
  • Magnetic Dipoles
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Momentum
  • Optical Lattices
  • Quantum Numbers
  • Quantum Properties
  • Scattering
  • Spin-Orbit Interaction
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Total Angular Momentum

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Plasma Physics.
  • Quantum Chemistry

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Space