Collisions of ultracold 23 Na 87 Rb molecules with controlled chemical reactivities
Open Access
- 5 January 2018
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science Advances
- Vol. 4 (1), eaaq0083
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaq0083
Abstract
The collision of molecules at ultracold temperatures is of great importance to understand the chemical interactions at the quantum regime. Although much theoretical work has been devoted to this, experimental data are only sparsely available, mainly because of the difficulty in producing ground-state molecules at ultracold temperatures. We report here the creation of optically trapped samples of ground-state bosonic sodium-rubidium molecules with precisely controlled internal states and, enabled by this, a detailed study on the inelastic loss with and without the NaRb + NaRb → Na2 + Rb2 chemical reaction. Contrary to intuitive expectations, we observed very similar loss and heating, regardless of the chemical reactivities. In addition, as evidenced by the reducing loss rate constants with increasing temperatures, we found that these collisions are already outside the Wigner region although the sample temperatures are sub-microkelvin. Our measurement agrees semiquantitatively with models based on long-range interactions but calls for a deeper understanding on the short-range physics for a more complete interpretation.Funding Information
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (award351923, 2014CB921403)
- Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee, Hong Kong (award351925, CUHK404712)
- Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee, Hong Kong (award364619, CUHK14301815)
- French ANR (award351926, ANR-13-IS04-0004-01)
This publication has 36 references indexed in Scilit:
- Creation of an Ultracold Gas of Ground-State DipolarMoleculesPhysical Review Letters, 2016
- Ultracold Dipolar Gas of FermionicMolecules in Their Absolute Ground StatePhysical Review Letters, 2015
- Creation of UltracoldMolecules in the Rovibrational Ground StatePhysical Review Letters, 2014
- Ultracold Dense Samples of Dipolar RbCs Molecules in the Rovibrational and Hyperfine Ground StatePhysical Review Letters, 2014
- Condensed Matter Theory of Dipolar Quantum GasesChemical Reviews, 2012
- Quantum-State Controlled Chemical Reactions of Ultracold Potassium-Rubidium MoleculesScience, 2010
- The physics of dipolar bosonic quantum gasesReports on Progress in Physics, 2009
- Cold controlled chemistryPhysical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 2008
- A coherent all-electrical interface between polar molecules and mesoscopic superconducting resonatorsNature Physics, 2006
- Quantum Computation with Trapped Polar MoleculesPhysical Review Letters, 2002