Scattering of Stark-decelerated OH radicals with rare-gas atoms

Abstract

We present a combined experimental and theoretical study on the rotationally inelastic scattering of OH ($X{}^2{\Pi }_{3/2},J=3/2,f$) radicals with the collision partners He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe, and D${}_2$ as a function of the collision energy between $\sim 70$ cm${}^{-1}$ and 400~cm${}^{-1}$. The OH radicals are state selected and velocity tuned prior to the collision using a Stark decelerator, and field-free parity-resolved state-to-state inelastic relative scattering cross sections are measured in a crossed molecular beam configuration. For all OH-rare gas atom systems excellent agreement is obtained with the cross sections predicted by close-coupling scattering calculations based on accurate \emph{ab initio} potential energy surfaces. This series of experiments complements recent studies on the scattering of OH radicals with Xe [Gilijamse \emph{et al.}, Science {\bf 313}, 1617 (2006)], Ar [Scharfenberg \emph{et al.}, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. {\bf 12}, 10660 (2010)], He, and D${}_2$ [Kirste \emph{et al.}, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 82}, 042717 (2010)]. A comparison of the relative scattering cross sections for this set of collision partners reveals interesting trends in the scattering behavior.

10 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Ultracold Rb-OH collisions and prospects for sympathetic cooling
• Operation of a Stark decelerator with optimum acceptance
• Low-energy inelastic collisions of OH radicals with He atoms and D${}_2$ molecules
• An analytic model of rotationally inelastic collisions of polar molecules in electric fields

Cited by in corpus (10)

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• Imaging resonances in low-energy NO-He inelastic collisions
• Quantum-state resolved bimolecular collisions of velocity-controlled OH with NO radicals
• Scattering resonances in slow NH${}_3$-He collisions
• Traveling wave deceleration of heavy polar molecules in low-field seeking states
• Resonances in rotationally inelastic scattering of OH($X^2\Pi$) with helium and neon
• Molecular Collisions: from Near-cold to Ultra-cold
• Stark deceleration of CaF molecules in strong- and weak-field seeking states
• Rotational-state purity of Stark-decelerated molecular beams
• Universal stereodynamics of cold atom-molecule collisions in electric fields