Collisions between Ultracold Molecules and Atoms in a Magnetic Trap
| Autor: | Noah Fitch, Matthew D. Frye, M. R. Tarbutt, Ben Sauer, A. Chakraborty, H. J. Williams, C. J. H. Rich, Jeremy M. Hutson, L. Caldwell, S. Jurgilas |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) Inelastic collision FOS: Physical sciences General Physics and Astronomy 01 natural sciences Upper and lower bounds Physics - Atomic Physics Quantum defect Magnetic trap Excited state 0103 physical sciences Molecule Atomic physics 010306 general physics Ground state |
| Zdroj: | Physical review letters, 2021, Vol.126(15), pp.153401 [Peer Reviewed Journal] |
| ISSN: | 1079-7114 0031-9007 |
| Popis: | We prepare mixtures of ultracold CaF molecules and Rb atoms in a magnetic trap and study their inelastic collisions. When the atoms are prepared in the spin-stretched state and the molecules in the spin-stretched component of the first rotationally excited state, they collide inelastically with a rate coefficient of $k_2 = (6.6 \pm 1.5) \times 10^{-11}$ cm$^{3}$/s at temperatures near 100~$��$K. We attribute this to rotation-changing collisions. When the molecules are in the ground rotational state we see no inelastic loss and set an upper bound on the spin relaxation rate coefficient of $k_2 < 5.8 \times 10^{-12}$ cm$^{3}$/s with 95% confidence. We compare these measurements to the results of a single-channel loss model based on quantum defect theory. The comparison suggests a short-range loss parameter close to unity for rotationally excited molecules, but below 0.04 for molecules in the rotational ground state. 9 pages, 6 figures. Minor changes following review |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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