Large Effects of Electric Fields on Atom-Molecule Collisions at Millikelvin Temperatures

Abstract

Controlling interactions between cold molecules using external fields can elucidate the role of quantum mechanics in molecular collisions. We create a new experimental platform in which ultracold rubidium atoms and cold ammonia molecules are separately trapped by magnetic and electric fields and then combined to study collisions. We observe inelastic processes that are faster than expected from earlier field-free calculations. We use quantum scattering calculations to show that electric fields can have a major effect on collision outcomes, even in the absence of dipole-dipole interactions.

5 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (40)

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• Observation of Quantum Effects in sub Kelvin Cold Reactions
• Manipulation of Molecules with Electromagnetic Fields
• Evaporative cooling of the dipolar radical OH
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• Laser cooling of molecules
• Cold heteromolecular dipolar collisions
• Dynamics of gas phase Ne${}^{\ast }$ + NH${}_3$ and Ne${}^{\ast }$ + ND${}_3$ Penning ionization at low temperatures
• A cryofuge for cold-collision experiments with slow polar molecules
• Collisions between cold molecules in a superconducting magnetic trap
• Magnetic Trapping of Molecules via Optical Loading and Magnetic Slowing
• Collisions Between Ultracold Molecules and Atoms in a Magnetic Trap
• Trapping of molecular Oxygen together with Lithium atoms
• Modeling sympathetic cooling of molecules by ultracold atoms
• Quantum state resolved molecular dipolar collisions over four decades of energy
• Ion-molecule reactions below 1~K: Observation of a strong enhancement of the reaction rate of the ion-dipole reaction He${}^{+}$+ CH${}_3$F
• Traveling wave deceleration of heavy polar molecules in low-field seeking states
• Controlling Spin-flips of Molecules in an Electromagnetic Trap
• The approach to chaos in ultracold atomic and molecular physics: statistics of near-threshold bound states for Li+CaH and Li+CaF
• Spin Dependent Collision of Ultracold Metastable Atoms
• Multistage Zeeman deceleration of metastable neon
• Molecular Collisions: from Near-cold to Ultra-cold
• Quantum-State-Specific Reaction Rate Measurements for the Photo-induced Reaction Ca${}^{+}$ + O${}_2$ $\to$ CaO${}^{+}$ + O
• Total angular momentum representation for atom-molecule collisions in electric fields
• Ultracold hydrogen atoms: a versatile coolant to produce ultracold molecules
• Rubidium Rydberg linear macrotrimers
• Quantum rainbow scattering at tunable velocities
• Thermometry of Guided Molecular Beams from a Cryogenic Buffer-Gas Cell
• Interactions of benzene, naphthalene, and azulene with alkali-metal and alkaline-earth-metal atoms for ultracold studies
• Low-energy collisions between carbon atoms and oxygen molecules in a magnetic trap
• Control of Ultracold Photodissociation with Magnetic Fields
• Rotational-state purity of Stark-decelerated molecular beams
• Collisions in a dual-species magneto-optical trap of molecules and atoms
• Collisions Between Ultracold Atoms and Cold Molecules in a Dual Electrostatic-Magnetic Trap
• Penning collisions between supersonically expanded metastable helium atoms and laser-cooled lithium atoms
• Imaging scattering resonances in low-energy inelastic ND${}_3$-H${}_2$ collisions
• Cold collisions of an open-shell S-state atom with a ^2Pi molecule: N(^4S) colliding with OH in a magnetic field
• Measurements of trap dynamics of cold OH molecules using resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization
• Reactions between cold methyl halide molecules and alkali-metal atoms
• Sensitive Low-Recoil VUV 1+1${}^{\prime }$ REMPI Detection of ND${}_3$