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Physics Today

Quantum interference in chemical reactions

F. Javier Aoiz, Richard N. Zare

Published Feb 1, 2018• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Interference much like that observed in two-slit experiments can be seen in the outcomes of chemical processes in which multiple reaction mechanisms lead to the same final state.
DOI
10.1063/pt.3.3855

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Interferences emerge when multiple pathways coexist together leading towards the same result. A Recent study by Blasing and coworkers [PRL 121(7):073202] showed that in a photo-association reaction of Raman dressed spin orbit coupled 87^{87}87Rb Bose Einstein Condensate when the reactant spin state is prepared in a coherent superposition of multiple bare spin states it leads to a destructive interference between reaction pathways. Here we report a theoretical study for a reaction scheme which leads to constructive quantum interference. This is achieved by changing the reactive scattering channel in the reaction. As the origin of coherent control comes from the spin part of the wavefunction it is sufficient to use radio frequency coupling to achieve the superposition state. Our results show that interferences can be used as a resource for the coherent control of photo-chemical reactions. The approach is general and can be employed to study a wide spectra of chemical reactions in the ultracold regime.