Cold collisions of complex polyatomic molecules

Abstract

We introduce a method for classical trajectory calculations to simulate collisions between atoms and large rigid asymmetric-top molecules. Using this method, we investigate the formation of molecule-helium complexes in buffer-gas cooling experiments at a temperature of 6.5 K for molecules as large as naphthalene. Our calculations show that the mean lifetime of the naphthalene-helium quasi-bound collision complex is not long enough for the formation of stable clusters under the experimental conditions. Our results suggest that it may be possible to improve the efficiency of the production of cold molecules in buffer-gas cooling experiments by increasing the density of helium. In addition, we find that the shape of molecules is important for the collision dynamics when the vibrational motion of molecules is frozen. For some molecules, it is even more crucial than the number of accessible degrees of freedom. This indicates that by selecting molecules with suitable shape for buffer-gas cooling, it may be possible to cool molecules with a very large number of degrees of freedom.

22 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Cold and Ultracold Molecules: Science, Technology, and Applications
• Quo vadis, cold molecules? - Editorial review
• Sympathetic cooling of polyatomic molecules with S-state atoms in a magnetic trap
• Manipulating the motion of large neutral molecules
• Cold collisions of complex polyatomic molecules

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• Cold collisions of complex polyatomic molecules
• Method for traveling-wave deceleration of buffer-gas beams of CH
• Interactions of benzene, naphthalene, and azulene with alkali-metal and alkaline-earth-metal atoms for ultracold studies
• Cold collisions of polyatomic molecular radicals with S-state atoms in a magnetic field: An ab initio study of He + CH2(X) collisions
• Wigner representation of the rotational dynamics of rigid tops
• Non-Sticking of Helium Buffer Gas to Hydrocarbons