Collisions in a dual-species magneto-optical trap of molecules and atoms

Abstract

We study inelastic collisions between CaF molecules and ${}^{87}$Rb atoms in a dual-species magneto-optical trap. The presence of atoms increases the loss rate of molecules from the trap. By measuring the loss rates and density distributions, we determine a collisional loss rate coefficient $k_2=(1.43\pm 0.29)\times 10^{-10}$ cm${}^3$/s at a temperature of 2.4 mK. We show that this is not substantially changed by light-induced collisions or by varying the populations of excited-state atoms and molecules. The observed loss rate is close to the universal rate expected in the presence of fast loss at short range, and can be explained by rotation-changing collisions in the ground electronic state.

14 pages, 6 figures. Added a new figure and some further details about the methods; expanded our discussion of the results

References in corpus (9)

• Observation of Quantum Effects in sub Kelvin Cold Reactions
• Cold N+NH Collisions in a Magnetic Trap
• Laser cooled molecules
• Characteristics of a magneto-optical trap of molecules
• Large Effects of Electric Fields on Atom-Molecule Collisions at Millikelvin Temperatures
• Collisions Between Ultracold Molecules and Atoms in a Magnetic Trap
• Observation of orbiting resonances in He(3S1) + NH3 Penning ionization
• Controlling Spin-flips of Molecules in an Electromagnetic Trap
• Quantum defect model of a reactive collision at finite temperature

Cited by in corpus (3)

• High Phase-Space Density of Laser-Cooled Molecules in an Optical Lattice
• The Li + CaF $\to$ Ca + LiF chemical reaction under cold conditions
• Molecule-molecule and atom-molecule collisions with ultracold RbCs molecules