S-wave and p-wave scattering in a cold gas of Na and Rb atoms

Abstract

Using improved experimentally based $X{}^1{\Sigma }^{+}$ and $a{}^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ molecular potentials of NaRb, we apply the variable phase method to compute new data for low energy scattering of ${}^{23}$Na atoms by ${}^{85}$Rb atoms and ${}^{87}$Rb atoms. These are the scattering lengths and volumes, numbers of bound states and effective ranges, which we use to obtain the low energy spin-change cross section as functions of the system temperature and the isotope masses. From an analysis of the contributions of s-wave and p-wave scatterings to the elastic cross section we estimate temperatures below which only s-wave scattering is dominant. We compare our quantal results to data obtained from the semiclassical approximation. We supply evidence for the existence of a near zero energy p-wave bound state supported by the singlet molecular potential.

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References in corpus (5)

• The higher-order C_n dispersion coefficients for hydrogen
• The variable phase method used to calculate and correct scattering lengths
• The higher order C_n dispersion coefficients for the alkali atoms
• Scattering parameters for cold-Li-Rb and Na-Rb collisions derived from variable phase theory
• A note on the calculation of the effective range