Engineering excited-state interactions at ultracold temperatures

Abstract

Using a recently developed method for precisely controlling collision energy, we observe a dramatic suppression of inelastic collisions between an atom and ion (Ca + Yb${}^{+}$) at low collision energy. This suppression, which is expected to be a universal phenomenon, arises when the spontaneous emission lifetime of the excited state is comparable to or shorter than the collision complex lifetime. We develop a technique to remove this suppression and engineer excited-state interactions. By dressing the system with a strong catalyst laser, a significant fraction of the collision complexes can be excited at a specified internuclear separation. This technique allows excited-state collisions to be studied, even at ultracold temperature, and provides a general method for engineering ultracold excited-state interactions.

6 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Enhanced Yield from a Cryogenic Buffer Gas Beam Source via Excited State Chemistry
• Cold trapped molecular ions and hybrid platforms for ions and neutral particles
• Optical control of atom-ion collisions using a Rydberg state
• Ultracold ion-atom experiments: cooling, chemistry, and quantum effects
• Photon-mediated charge-exchange reactions between 39K atoms and 40Ca+ ions in a hybrid trap
• Excitation-assisted nonadiabatic charge-transfer reaction in a mixed atom-ion system
• Ion loss events in a cold Rb-Ca${}^{+}$ hybrid trap: photodissociation, black-body radiation and non-radiative charge exchange