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Physical Review A

Cold collisions between boson or fermion molecules

Masatoshi Kajita

Published Jan 21, 2004• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We theoretically investigate collisions between electrostatically trapped cold polar molecules and compare boson and fermion isotopes. Evaporative cooling seems possible for fermion molecules as the ratio of the collision loss cross section to the elastic collision cross section (R) gets smaller as the molecular temperature T lowers. With boson molecules, R gets larger as T lowers, which makes evaporative cooling difficult. The elastic collision cross section between fermion molecules can be larger than that for boson molecules with certain conditions.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.69.012709

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We theoretically investigate collisions between electrostatically trapped cold polar molecules and compare boson and fermion isotopes. Evaporative cooling seems possible for fermion molecules as the ratio of the collision loss cross section to the elastic collision cross section (R) gets smaller as the molecular temperature T lowers. With boson molecules, R gets larger as T lowers, which makes evaporative cooling difficult. The elastic collision cross section between fermion molecules can be larger than that for boson molecules with certain conditions.
In the quest toward realizing novel quantum matter in ultracold molecular gases, we perform a numerical study of evaporative cooling in ultracold gases of microwave-shielded polar fermionic molecules. Our Monte Carlo simulations incorporate accurate two-body elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections, realistic modeling of the optical dipole trap, and the influence of Pauli blocking at low temperatures. The simulations are benchmarked against data from evaporation studies performed with ultracold NaK molecules, showing excellent agreement. We further explore the prospects for optimizing the evaporation efficiency by varying the ramp rate and duration of the evaporation trajectory. Our simulation shows that it is possible to reach <10<10%<10 of the Fermi temperature under optimal conditions even in the presence of two-body molecular losses.
Abstract Collisions between cold molecules are essential for studying fundamental aspects of quantum chemistry, and may enable the formation of quantum degenerate molecular matter by evaporative cooling. However, collisions between trapped, naturally occurring molecules have not been directly observed so far owing to the low collision rates of dilute samples. Here we report the direct observation of collisions between cold trapped molecules, without the need for laser cooling. We magnetically capture molecular oxygen in an 800-millikelvin-deep superconducting trap and set bounds on the ratio between the elastic- and inelastic-scattering rates—the key parameter determining the feasibility of evaporative cooling. We further co-trap atoms and molecules and identify collisions between them, paving the way for studies of cold interspecies collisions in a magnetic trap.
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Collisions at ultracold temperatures between ${}^{1}\phantom{\rule{-0.16em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\Sigma}$-state diatomic polar molecules in a circularly polarized microwave field are theoretically analyzed. We demonstrate that elastic and inelastic collisions of polar molecules at ultracold temperatures are affected by an external microwave field and that they are enhanced at resonance frequencies. We show that the collision dynamics of polar molecules in a microwave field is largely determined by the long-range dipole-dipole interaction. Through this interaction, two polar molecules can resonantly exchange internal energy by undergoing a transition between neighboring rotational levels. This process may stabilize the system and enable the successive evaporative cooling of molecules. This paper discusses fermionic polar molecules at ultralow temperatures (1 $\ensuremath{\mu}$K).