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${}_2$($a^3{\Sigma }_u^{+}$)

Abstract

Ultracold chemical reactions of weakly bound triplet-state alkali-metal dimer molecules have recently attracted much experimental interest. We perform rigorous quantum scattering calculations with a new $abinitio$ potential energy surface to explore the chemical reaction of spin-polarized NaLi($a^3{\Sigma }^{+}$) and Li(${}^2$S) to form Li${}_2$($a^3{\Sigma }_u^{+}$) and Na(${}^2$S). The reaction is exothermic, and proceeds readily at ultralow temperatures. Significantly, we observe strong sensitivity of the total reaction rate to small variations of the three-body part of the Li${}_2$Na interaction at short range, which we attribute to a relatively small number of open Li${}_2$($a^3{\Sigma }_u^{+}$) product channels populated in the reaction. This provides the first signature of highly non-universal dynamics seen in rigorous quantum reactive scattering calculations of an ultracold exothermic insertion reaction involving a polar alkali-dimer molecule, opening up the possibility of probing microscopic interactions in atom+molecule collision complexes via ultracold reactive scattering experiments.

arXiv comment26 pages, 5 figures (Supporting information: 12 pages, 5 figures)

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• Interaction-Region Decoupling through Structured Absorbing Potentials: A Framework for Scalable Time-Dependent Quantum Dynamics Calculations
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