Quantum spin state selectivity and magnetic tuning of ultracold chemical reactions of triplet alkali-metal dimers with alkali-metal atoms

Abstract

We demonstrate that it is possible to efficiently control ultracold chemical reactions of alkali-metal atoms colliding with open-shell alkali-metal dimers in their metastable triplet states by choosing the internal hyperfine and rovibrational states of the reactants as well as by inducing magnetic Feshbach resonances with an external magnetic field. We base these conclusions on coupled-channel statistical calculations that include the effects of hyperfine contact and magnetic-field-induced Zeeman interactions on ultracold chemical reactions of hyperfine-resolved ground-state Na and the triplet NaLi(a${}^3{\Sigma }^{+}$) producing singlet Na${}_2$(${}^1{\Sigma }_g^{+}$) and a Li atom. We find that the reaction rates are sensitive to the initial hyperfine states of the reactants. The chemical reaction of fully spin-polarized, high-spin states of rotationless NaLi(a${}^3{\Sigma }^{+},v=0,N=0$) molecules with fully spin-polarized Na is suppressed by a factor of 10-100 compared to that of unpolarized reactants. We interpret these findings within the adiabatic state model, which treats the reaction as a sequence of nonadiabatic transitions between the initial non-reactive high-spin state and the final low-spin states of the reaction complex. In addition, we show that magnetic Feshbach resonances can similarly change reaction rate coefficients by several orders of magnitude. Some of these resonances are due to resonant trimer bound states dissociating to the $N=2$ rotational state of NaLi(a${}^3{\Sigma }^{+},v=0$) and would thus exist in systems without hyperfine interactions.

arXiv comment6 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (40)

• Feshbach Resonances in Ultracold Gases
• Cold molecules: Progress in Quantum Engineering of Chemistry and Quantum Matter
• Magneto-optical trapping of a diatomic molecule
• Sisyphus Laser Cooling of a Polyatomic Molecule
• Laser Cooling of Optically Trapped Molecules
• 3-D Magneto-Optical Trap of Yttrium Monoxide
• Universal rate constants for reactive collisions of ultracold molecules
• Ultracold molecules for measuring the electron's electric dipole moment
• Long-Lived Ultracold Molecules with Electric and Magnetic Dipole Moments
• Direct observation of bimolecular reactions of ultracold KRb molecules
• Observation of magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances in ultracold ${}^{23}$Na${}^{40}$K+${}^{40}$K collisions
• Magnetically-Trapped Molecules Efficiently Loaded from a Molecular MOT
• Controlling electronic spin relaxation of cold molecules with electric fields
• Collisional Cooling of Ultracold Molecules
• Observation of Collisions between Two Ultracold Ground-State CaF Molecules
• Ultracold Rb-OH collisions and prospects for sympathetic cooling
• Strong dependence of ultracold chemical rates on electric dipole moments
• Universal ultracold collision rates for polar molecules of two alkali-metal atoms
• Universal model for exoergic bimolecular reactions and inelastic processes
• Dispersion interactions and reactive collisions of ultracold polar molecules
• Long-Lived Complexes, Ergodicity and Chaos in Ultracold Molecular Collisions
• Controlled state-to-state atom-exchange reaction in an ultracold atom-dimer mixture
• Collisions Between Ultracold Molecules and Atoms in a Magnetic Trap
• Ultracold spin-polarized mixtures of 2Sigma molecules with S-state atoms: Collisional stability and implications for sympathetic cooling
• Theoretical study of the absorption spectra of the sodium dimer
• Magnetic Feshbach resonances in collisions of ${}^{23}$Na${}^{40}$K with ${}^{40}$K
• Ultracold chemistry with alkali-metal-rare-earth molecules
• Atom-molecule collisions, spin relaxation, and sympathetic cooling in an ultracold spin-polarized Rb(${}^2\mathrm{S}$)-SrF${(}^2{\Sigma }^{+})$ mixture
• Statistical product distributions for ultracold reactions in external fields
• Cold atomic and molecular collisions: approaching the universal loss regime
• Ab initio properties of the NaLi molecule in the $a^3{\Sigma }^{+}$ electronic state
• The approach to chaos in ultracold atomic and molecular physics: statistics of near-threshold bound states for Li+CaH and Li+CaF
• Steering ultracold reactions through long-lived transient intermediates
• Universal probability distributions of scattering observables in ultracold molecular collisions
• Cold collisions of heavy ${}^2\Sigma$ molecules with alkali-metal atoms in a magnetic field: Ab initio analysis and prospects for sympathetic cooling of SrOH${(}^2\Sigma )$ by Li(${}^2$S)
• Inelastic collisions of ultracold triplet Rb${}_{\text{2}}$ molecules in the rovibrational ground state
• Adiabatic Channel Capture Theory Applied to Cold Atom-Molecule Reactions: Li + CaH -> LiH + Ca at 1 K
• Magnetic tuning of ultracold barrierless chemical reactions
• Full-dimensional quantum scattering calculations on ultracold atom-molecule collisions in magnetic fields: The role of molecular vibrations
• Quantum-State Controlled Penning Ionization Reactions between Ultracold Alkali and Metastable Helium Atoms

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Control of reactive collisions by quantum interference
• A Feshbach resonance in collisions between ultracold ground state molecules
• Spectrum of Feshbach resonances in NaLi $+$ Na collisions
• Spin-conservation propensity rule for three-body recombination of ultracold Rb atoms
• Preparation of a quantum degenerate mixture of ${}^{23}$Na${}^{40}$K molecules and ${}^{40}$K atoms
• Signatures of Non-universal Quantum Dynamics of Ultracold Chemical Reactions of Polar Alkali-dimer Molecules with Alkali-metal Atoms: Li(${}^2$S) +NaLi($a^3{\Sigma }^{+}$) $\to$ Na(${}^2$S) + Li${}_2$($a^3{\Sigma }_u^{+}$)
• Magnetic Feshbach resonances in ultracold atom-molecule collisions
• Nuclear spin relaxation in cold atom-molecule collisions
• Spin hierarchy in van der Waals molecule formation via ultracold three-body recombination
• Total angular momentum representation for state-to-state quantum scattering of cold molecules in a magnetic field
• Ultracold molecular collisions in magnetic fields: Efficient incorporation of hyperfine structure in the total rotational angular momentum representation