Quantum suppression of cold reactions far from the s-wave energy limit

Abstract

Quantum effects in chemical reactions are most pronounced at ultracold temperatures, where only a few partial waves contribute. While interference among many partial waves is theoretically expected to persist at higher temperatures, direct evidence for such quantum effects in reactive processes has been lacking. Here, we report the first observation of quantum interference suppressing a chemical reaction in the multi-partial-wave regime: resonant charge exchange between a single ${}^{87}$Rb atom and its parent ion ${}^{87}$Rb${}^{+}$. Using quantum-logic detection on a single atom-ion pair and a calibrated in-situ measurement of Langevin collision probabilities, we benchmark the thermally averaged reaction rate against both classical and quantum predictions. We find that the reaction rate is suppressed by over an order of magnitude relative to the classical expectation, despite occurring in the millikelvin temperature regime (more than three orders of magnitude above the $s$-wave threshold), where more than a dozen partial waves contribute. These results establish quantum interference as a key mechanism in chemical reactivity beyond the ultracold limit and offer a platform for probing coherent quantum effects in atom-ion reactions where \textit{ab initio} methods remain intractable.

References in corpus (21)

• Nonlinear atom interferometer surpasses classical precision limit
• Tools for quantum simulation with ultracold atoms in optical lattices
• Controlling chemical reactions of a single particle
• Cold heteronuclear atom-ion collisions
• Probing isotope effects in chemical reactions using single ions
• Observation of Feshbach resonances between a single ion and ultracold atoms
• Kinetics of a single trapped ion in an ultracold buffer gas
• Charge-exchange collisions between ultracold fermionic lithium atoms and calcium ions
• Tomography of Feshbach Resonance States
• Observation of Chemical Reactions between a Trapped Ion and Ultracold Feshbach Dimers
• Coupling light to a nuclear spin gas with a two-photon linewidth of five millihertz
• Quantum defect model of a reactive collision at finite temperature
• Observation of trap-assisted formation of atom-ion bound states
• Quantum-Logic Detection of Chemical Reactions
• Trap-assisted complexes in cold atom-ion collisions
• Quantum simulation of extended polaron models using compound atom-ion systems
• Ultracold ion-atom experiments: cooling, chemistry, and quantum effects
• Photon-mediated charge-exchange reactions between 39K atoms and 40Ca+ ions in a hybrid trap
• Observation of the P-wave Shape Resonance
• Quantum control of ion-atom collisions beyond the ultracold regime
• High-accuracy Rb${}_2^{+}$ interaction potentials based on coupled cluster calculations