Cold collisions of N atoms and NH molecules in magnetic fields

Abstract

We calculate the interaction potential between N atoms and NH molecules and use it to investigate cold and ultracold collisions important for sympathetic cooling. The ratio of elastic to inelastic cross sections is large over a wide range of collision energy and magnetic field for most isotopic combinations, so that sympathetic cooling of NH molecules by N atoms is a good prospect. However, there are important effects due to a p-wave shape resonance that may inhibit cooling in some cases. We show that scaling the reduced mass used in the collision is approximately equivalent to scaling the interaction potential. We then explore the dependence of the scattering properties on the reduced mass and explain the resonant effects observed using angular-momentum-insensitive quantum defect theory

12 figures, 33 pages, RSC format

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Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Quantum reactive scattering of ultracold NH($X{}^3{\Sigma }^{-}$) radicals in a magnetic trap
• Efficient method for quantum calculations of molecule - molecule scattering properties in a magnetic field
• Molecular Collisions: from Near-cold to Ultra-cold
• Total angular momentum representation for atom-molecule collisions in electric fields
• Total angular momentum representation for state-to-state quantum scattering of cold molecules in a magnetic field