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Jurgilas S, Chakraborty A, Rich CJH, Caldwell L, Williams HJ, Fitch NJ, Sauer BE, Frye MD, Hutson JM, Tarbutt MR. Collisions between Ultracold Molecules and Atoms in a Magnetic Trap. Phys Rev Lett 2021; 126:153401. [PMID: 33929220 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.126.153401] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2021] [Revised: 02/19/2021] [Accepted: 03/04/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
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 k_{2}=(6.6±1.5)×10^{-11} cm^{3}/s at temperatures near 100 μK. 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}<5.8×10^{-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.
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Affiliation(s)
- S Jurgilas
- Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - A Chakraborty
- Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - C J H Rich
- Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - L Caldwell
- Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - H J Williams
- Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - N J Fitch
- Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - B E Sauer
- Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Matthew D Frye
- Joint Quantum Centre (JQC) Durham-Newcastle, Department of Chemistry, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom
| | - Jeremy M Hutson
- Joint Quantum Centre (JQC) Durham-Newcastle, Department of Chemistry, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom
| | - M R Tarbutt
- Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
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