2010/03/21 by Goulven Quéméner, John L. Bohn · 63 citations
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic physics #Chemical polarity #Chemistry #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Collision #Condensed matter physics #Elastic collision #Electric field #Electron #Fluorescence #Materials science #Molecular physics #Molecule #Optical lattice #Physics #Polar #Quantum mechanics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Quenching (fluorescence) #Reaction rate constant #Scattering #Spectroscopy and Laser Applications #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.81.060701
published in Physical Review A 81(6) (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2010/03/21 · openalex publication_date 2010/06/09 · arxiv updated 2010/06/11 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider ultracold collisions of polar molecules confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Using a quantum scattering formalism and a frame transformation method, we calculate elastic and chemical quenching rate constants for fermionic molecules. Taking 40K87Rb molecules as a prototype, we find that the rate of quenching collisions is enhanced at zero electric field as the confinement is increased but that this rate is suppressed when the electric field is turned on. For molecules with 500 nK of collision energy, for realistic molecular densities, and for achievable experimental electric fields and trap confinements, we predict lifetimes for KRb molecules to be 1 s. We find a ratio of elastic to quenching collision rates of about 100, which may be sufficient to achieve efficient evaporative cooling of polar KRb molecules.