Crossover from the Ultracold to the Quasiclassical Regime in State-Selected Photodissociation

Abstract

Processes that break molecular bonds are typically observed with molecules occupying a mixture of quantum states and successfully described with quasiclassical models, while a few studies have explored the distinctly quantum mechanical low-energy regime. Here we use photodissociation of diatomic strontium molecules to demonstrate the crossover from the ultracold, quantum regime where the photofragment angular distributions strongly depend on the kinetic energy, to the energy-independent quasiclassical regime. Using time-of-flight velocity map imaging for photodissociation channels with millikelvin reaction barriers, we explore photofragment energies in the 0.1-300 mK range experimentally and up to 3 K theoretically, and discuss the energy scale at which the crossover occurs. Furthermore, we find that the effects of quantum statistics can unexpectedly persist to high photodissociation energies.

arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Quantum control of molecular rotation
• Imaging the onset of the resonance regime in low-energy NO-He collisions
• Fast and dense magneto-optical traps for Strontium
• Experimental and Theoretical Investigation of the Crossover from the Ultracold to the Quasiclassical Regime of Photodissociation
• Two-color Ytterbium MOT in a compact dual-chamber setup
• High-intensity two-frequency photoassociation spectroscopy of a weakly bound molecular state: theory and experiment
• Ab initio electronic structure of the Sr${}_2^{+}$ molecular ion
• Quantum suppression of cold reactions far from the s-wave energy limit
• Chemistry in a Cryogenic Buffer Gas Cell