Observation of Quantum Effects in sub Kelvin Cold Reactions

Abstract

There has been a long-standing quest to observe chemical reactions at low temperatures where reaction rates and pathways are governed by quantum mechanical effects. So far this field of Quantum Chemistry has been dominated by theory. The difficulty has been to realize in the laboratory low enough collisional velocities between neutral reactants, so that the quantum wave nature could be observed. We report here the first realization of merged neutral supersonic beams, and the observation of clear quantum effects in the resulting reactions. We observe orbiting resonances in the Penning ionization reaction of argon and molecular hydrogen with metastable helium leading to a sharp increase in the absolute reaction rate in the energy range corresponding to a few degrees kelvin down to 10 mK. Our method is widely applicable to many canonical chemical reactions, and will enable a breakthrough in the experimental study of Quantum Chemistry.

References in corpus (10)

• Quantum-State Controlled Chemical Reactions of Ultracold KRb Molecules
• Low-energy molecular collisions in a permanent magnetic trap
• Kinetics and Dynamics of the S(^1D_2) + H_2 \to SH + H Reaction at Very Low Temperatures and Collision Energies
• Interferometric determination of the s- and d-wave scattering amplitudes in ${}^{87}$Rb
• Cold heteromolecular dipolar collisions
• Imaging of s and d partial-wave interference in quantum scattering of identical bosonic atoms
• Large Effects of Electric Fields on Atom-Molecule Collisions at Millikelvin Temperatures
• Quantum dynamics of the Li+HF-->H+LiF reaction at ultralow temperatures
• Quantum dynamics of the O + OH -> H + O2 reaction at low temperatures
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Cited by in corpus (108)

• Cold molecules: Progress in Quantum Engineering of Chemistry and Quantum Matter
• Quantum control of molecular rotation
• Manipulation of Molecules with Electromagnetic Fields
• Building one molecule from a reservoir of two atoms
• Direct observation of bimolecular reactions of ultracold KRb molecules
• Roadmap on STIRAP applications
• Millikelvin Reactive Collisions between Sympathetically-Cooled Molecular Ions and Laser-Cooled Atoms in an Ion-Atom Hybrid Trap
• Observation of magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances in ultracold ${}^{23}$Na${}^{40}$K+${}^{40}$K collisions
• Specific chemical reactivities of spatially separated 3-aminophenol conformers with cold Ca${}^{+}$ ions
• Imaging resonances in low-energy NO-He inelastic collisions
• Direct probe of anisotropy in atom-molecule collisions via quantum scattering resonances
• Spatially-controlled complex molecules and their applications
• Attosecond timing of electron emission from a molecular shape resonance
• Collisional Cooling of Ultracold Molecules
• Quantum state manipulation and cooling of ultracold molecules
• Imaging the onset of the resonance regime in low-energy NO-He collisions
• Dynamics of gas phase Ne${}^{\ast }$ + NH${}_3$ and Ne${}^{\ast }$ + ND${}_3$ Penning ionization at low temperatures
• Control of reactive collisions by quantum interference
• A cryofuge for cold-collision experiments with slow polar molecules
• Collisions between cold molecules in a superconducting magnetic trap
• New method to study ion-molecule reactions at low temperatures and application to the H${}_2^{+}$ + H${}_2$ $\to$ H${}_3^{+}$ + H reaction
• Light-Assisted Cold Chemical Reactions of Barium Ions with Rubidium Atoms
• Rydberg-Stark deceleration of atoms and molecules
• A buffer gas beam source for short, intense and slow molecular pulses
• Observation of enhanced rate coefficients in the H${}_2^{+}$ + H${}_2$ $\to$ H${}_3^{+}$ + H reaction at low collision energies
• Remote entanglement via adiabatic passage using a tunably-dissipative quantum communication system
• Buffer-gas cooling, high-resolution spectroscopy and optical cycling of barium monofluoride molecules
• Unravelling the stereodynamics of cold HD-H2 collisions
• Collisions Between Ultracold Molecules and Atoms in a Magnetic Trap
• Stereodynamical control of a quantum scattering resonance in cold molecular collisions
• Observation of orbiting resonances in He(3S1) + NH3 Penning ionization
• Field-linked resonances of polar molecules
• Quantum theory of reactive collisions for 1/r^n potentials
• Determining the nature of quantum resonances by probing elastic and reactive scattering in cold collisions
• High-resolution imaging of velocity-controlled molecular collisions using counterpropagating beams
• Tuning bimolecular chemical reactions by electric fields
• Tomography of Feshbach Resonance States
• Energy dependent stereodynamics of the Ne(${}^3$P${}_2$)+Ar reaction
• Quantum state resolved molecular dipolar collisions over four decades of energy
• Study of the Ne(^3P_2) + CH_3F Electron Transfer Reaction below 1 Kelvin
• Ion-molecule reactions below 1~K: Observation of a strong enhancement of the reaction rate of the ion-dipole reaction He${}^{+}$+ CH${}_3$F
• Complete quantum coherent control of ultracold molecular collisions
• Cold atomic and molecular collisions: approaching the universal loss regime
• Getting a Grip on the Transverse Motion in a Zeeman Decelerator
• Quantum defect model of a reactive collision at finite temperature
• Cold collisions in a molecular synchrotron
• Design and construction of a multistage Zeeman decelerator for crossed molecular beams scattering experiments
• Optimized cell geometry for buffer-gas-cooled molecular-beam sources
• First-principle interaction potentials for metastable He(${}^3$S) and Ne(${}^3$P) with closed-shell molecules. Application to Penning-Ionizing systems
• Observing Power-Law Dynamics of Position-Velocity Correlation in Anomalous Diffusion
• Molecular Collisions: from Near-cold to Ultra-cold
• Collisional losses of ultracold molecules due to intermediate complex formation
• Stereodynamic control of cold rotationally inelastic CO + HD collisions
• 3D printed beam splitter for polar neutral molecules
• Direct Observation of a Feshbach-resonance by Coincidence-detection of Ions and Electrons in Penning Ionization Collisions
• Multistage Zeeman deceleration of NH $X{}^3{\Sigma }^{-}$ radicals
• Improved spatial separation of neutral molecules
• An ultra-bright atom laser
• Threshold resonance effects in reactive processes
• Adiabatic Channel Capture Theory Applied to Cold Atom-Molecule Reactions: Li + CaH -> LiH + Ca at 1 K
• Ab-initio Theory of Photoionization via Resonances
• Ultrafast intermolecular energy transfer from vibrations to electronic motion
• Coherent control of reactive scattering at low temperatures: Signatures of quantum interference in the differential cross sections for F + H2 and F + HD
• Quantum rainbow scattering at tunable velocities
• Zeeman deceleration of electron-impact-excited metastable helium atoms
• Trapping cold ground state argon atoms for sympathetic cooling of molecules
• Coherent Control of Penning and Associative Ionization: Insights from Symmetries
• Thermometry of Guided Molecular Beams from a Cryogenic Buffer-Gas Cell
• Mesoscopic dipolar quantum crystals
• Importance of rotationally inelastic processes in low-energy Penning ionization of CHF${}_3$
• Low-energy collisions between carbon atoms and oxygen molecules in a magnetic trap
• Reduction of local velocity spreads by linear potentials
• Jost function description of near threshold resonances for coupled-channel scattering
• Phase protection of Fano-Feshbach resonances
• Experimental and Theoretical Investigation of Resonances in Low-Energy NO-H${}_2$ collisions
• Few-body physics of ultracold atoms and molecules with long-range interactions
• Probing resonant energy transfer in collisions of ammonia with Rydberg helium atoms by microwave spectroscopy
• Coherent control of bond making: The performance of rationally phase-shaped femtosecond laser pulses
• Theoretical description of mixed-field orientation of asymmetric top molecules: a time-dependent study
• Collisions in a dual-species magneto-optical trap of molecules and atoms
• High-resolution collision energy control through ion position modulation in atom-ion hybrid systems
• 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
• Observation of the P-wave Shape Resonance
• Quantum-State Controlled Penning Ionization Reactions between Ultracold Alkali and Metastable Helium Atoms
• Beyond universality: parametrizing ultracold complex-mediated reactions using statistical assumptions
• Optical Quenching of Metastable Helium Atoms using Excitation to the $4P$ State
• Photoassociation spectroscopy in Penning ionization reactions at sub-Kelvin temperatures
• Nonrigidity effects -- a missing puzzle piece in the description of low-energy anisotropic molecular collisions
• Enhanced coupling of electron and nuclear spins by quantum tunneling resonances
• Generating high density molecular jets of complex neutral organic molecules using micro-sized Tesla valves
• Imaging scattering resonances in low-energy inelastic ND${}_3$-H${}_2$ collisions
• Ab initio interaction potentials and scattering lengths for ultracold mixtures of metastable helium and alkali-metal atoms
• Exploring atom-ion Feshbach resonances below the s-wave limit
• Universal behavior in complex-mediated reactions: Dynamics of S(1D)+ o-D2 --> D + SD at low collision energies
• Suppression of Penning ionization by orbital angular momentum conservation
• Feshbach Resonances in Cold Collisions: Benchmarking State of the Art ab initio Potential Energy Surfaces
• Molecular Hydrogen: a benchmark system for Near Threshold Resonances at higher partial waves
• Observation of Fermi acceleration with cold atoms
• Single-Source, Collinear Merged-Beam Experiment for the Study of Reactive Neutral-Neutral Collisions
• Resonances at very low temperature for the reaction D${}_2$+H
• Spin-state-controlled chemi-ionization reactions between metastable helium atoms and ground-state lithium atoms
• Electrostatic guiding of the methylidyne radical at cryogenic temperatures
• Hyperfine and Zeeman interactions in ultracold collisions of molecular hydrogen with atomic lithium
• A novel crossed-molecular-beam experiment for investigating reactions of state- and conformationally selected strong-field-seeking molecules
• In Situ Dynamic Four-Dimensional Strong Field Ionization Tomography
• Sensitive detection of metastable NO and \ce{N2} by reactive collisions with laser-excited Li
• Merging Two Molecular Beams of ND${}_3$ up to the Liouville Limit