2025/04/30 by Dominik Dorer, Shinsuke Haze, Dorer, Dominik +13 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Strong Light-Matter Interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2504.21727
openalex publication_date 2025/04/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We demonstrate a method for controlling the outcome of an ultracold chemical few-body reaction by redirecting a tunable fraction of reaction flux from one selected product channel to another one. In the reaction, three ultracold atoms collide to form a diatomic molecule. This product molecule can be produced in various internal states, characterizing the different product channels of the reaction. Our scheme relies on the coupling between two such product channels at an avoided molecular energy level crossing in the presence of an external magnetic field. The degree of coupling can be set by the magnetic field strength and allows for a widely tunable flux control between the two channels. This scheme is quite general and also holds great promise for a large variety of chemical processes with diverse species, since molecular energy level crossings are ubiquitous in molecular systems and are often easily accessible by standard laboratory equipment.