2010/03/31 by Piotr S. Żuchowski, Piotr S. Zuchowski, Jeremy M. Hutson · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Strong Light-Matter Interactions #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.81.060703
published as Phys. Rev. A 81, 060703 (2010) · Version responding to referees comments, with updated references and numerical changes in Table 3, but conclusions unchanged
arxiv created 2010/05/13 · openalex publication_date 2010/06/15 · arxiv updated 2010/06/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate the energetics of reactions involving pairs of alkali-metal dimers. Atom exchange reactions to form homonuclear dimers are energetically allowed for some but not all of the heteronuclear dimers. We carry out high-level electronic structure calculations on the potential energy surfaces of all the heteronuclear alkali-metal trimers and show that trimer formation reactions are always energetically forbidden for low-lying singlet states of the dimers. The results have important implications for the stability of quantum gases of alkali-metal dimers.