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Journal of Physics Conference Series

Formation of H3− molecular ions by Three-Body Recombination

Humberto da Silva, Olivier Dulieu, Maurice Raoult

Published Jan 1, 2020• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Synopsis The simplest triatomic molecular ion H 3 − , is predicted to be stable, but has not yet been directly observed experimentally. He we model its formation via Three-Body Recombination of cold and trapped H− ions colliding with H2 molecules in the presence of a buffer gas of He atoms.
DOI
10.1088/1742-6596/1412/12/122026

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We report on three-body recombination of a single trapped Rb(+) ion and two neutral Rb atoms in an ultracold atom cloud. We observe that the corresponding rate coefficient K(3) depends on collision energy and is about a factor of 1000 larger than for three colliding neutral Rb atoms. In the three-body recombination process large energies up to several 0.1 eV are released leading to an ejection of the ion from the atom cloud. It is sympathetically recooled back into the cloud via elastic binary collisions with cold atoms. Further, we find that the final ionic product of the three-body processes is again an atomic Rb(+) ion suggesting that the ion merely acts as a catalyzer, possibly in the formation of deeply bound Rb(2) molecules.
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Three-body recombination is a prime example of the fundamental interaction between three particles. Due to the complexity of this process it has resisted a comprehensive description. Experimental investigations have mainly focussed on the observation of corresponding loss rates without revealing information on the reaction products. Here, we provide the first general experimental study on the population distribution of molecular quantum states after three-body recombination in a non-resonant regime. We have developed a highly sensitive detection scheme which combines photoionization of the molecules with subsequent ion trapping. By analyzing the ionization spectrum, we identify the population of energy levels with binding energies up to h×750 h\times 750\:h×750GHz. We find a broad population of electronic and nuclear spin states and determine a range of populated vibrational and rotational states. The method presented here can be expanded to provide a full survey of the products of the recombination process. This may be pivotal in developing an in-depth model that can qualitatively and quantitatively predict the reaction products of three-body recombination.
We investigate inelastic collision dynamics of a single cold ion in a Bose-Einstein condensate. We observe rapid ion-atom-atom three-body recombination leading to the formation of weakly bound molecular ions followed by secondary two-body molecule-atom collisions quenching the rovibrational states towards deeper binding energies. In contrast to previous studies exploiting hybrid ion traps, we work in an effectively field-free environment and generate a free low-energy ionic impurity directly from the atomic ensemble via Rydberg excitation and ionization. This allows us to implement an energy-resolved field-dissociation technique to trace the relaxation dynamics of the recombination products. Our observations are in good agreement with numerical simulations based on Langevin capture dynamics and provide a complementary means to study stability and reaction dynamics of ionic impurities in ultracold quantum gases.