Sticky collisions of ultracold RbCs molecules

Abstract

Understanding and controlling collisions is crucial to the burgeoning field of ultracold molecules. All experiments so far have observed fast loss of molecules from the trap. However, the dominant mechanism for collisional loss is not well understood when there are no allowed 2-body loss processes. Here we experimentally investigate collisional losses of nonreactive ultracold RbCs molecules, and compare our findings with the sticky collision hypothesis that pairs of molecules form long-lived collision complexes. We demonstrate that loss of molecules occupying their rotational and hyperfine ground state is best described by second-order rate equations, consistent with the expectation for complex-mediated collisions, but that the rate is lower than the limit of universal loss. The loss is insensitive to magnetic field but increases for excited rotational states. We demonstrate that dipolar effects lead to significantly faster loss for an incoherent mixture of rotational states.

arXiv comment15 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

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• Observation of Collisions between Two Ultracold Ground-State CaF Molecules
• Loss of ultracold RbCs molecules via optical excitation of long-lived two-body collision complexes
• Quantum state manipulation and cooling of ultracold molecules
• Bimolecular chemistry in the ultracold regime
• A robust entangling gate for polar molecules using magnetic and microwave fields
• Collisions of ultracold molecules in bright and dark optical dipole traps
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• Optical shielding of destructive chemical reactions between ultracold ground-state NaRb molecules
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• Enhanced quantum control of individual ultracold molecules using optical tweezer arrays
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• Ab initio properties of the NaLi molecule in the $a^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ electronic state
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• Multichannel interactions of two atoms in an optical tweezer
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• Molecular Collisions: from Near-cold to Ultra-cold
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• Trap-assisted complexes in cold atom-ion collisions
• Coherent Manipulation of the Internal State of Ultracold ${}^{87}$Rb${}^{133}$Cs Molecules with Multiple Microwave Fields
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• Observation of resonant dipolar collisions in ultracold ${}^{23}$Na${}^{87}$Rb rotational mixtures
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