Alkaline-earth-like transition-metal atoms such as Zn and Cd are promising candidates for precision measurements and quantum many-body physics experiments. Here, we theoretically investigate the properties of diatomic molecules containing these closed-shell atoms. We calculate potential-energy curves, permanent electric dipole moments, and spectroscopic constants for molecules consisting of either a Zn or Cd atom interacting with an alkali-metal (Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs, Fr) or alkaline-earth-metal (Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Ra) atom. We use the ab initio electronic-structure coupled-cluster method with single, double, and triple excitations combined with large Gaussian basis sets and small-core relativistic energy-consistent pseudopotentials for heavier atoms. We predict that the studied molecules in the ground electronic state are chemically reactive weakly bound van der Waals complexes with small permanent electric dipole moments. The present results may be useful for spectroscopy and application of the studied molecules in modern ultracold physics and chemistry experiments.
The long-range part of the interatomic interactions plays a substantial role in the collisional dynamics of ultracold gases. Here, we report on the calculation of the isotropic and anisotropic
C6 coefficients characterizing the van der Waals interaction between dysprosium or erbium atoms in the two lowest energy levels and the ground-state alkali-metal (Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs, Fr) or alkaline-earth-metal (Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba) atoms. The calculations are done using the integral of dynamic dipole polarizabilities at so-called imaginary frequencies of the two interacting atoms. For all atom pairs, we find that the isotropic
C6 coefficients are two or three orders of magnitude larger than the anisotropic ones. Those coefficients are essential for modeling collisional properties of heteronuclear quantum mixtures containing highly magnetic dysprosium or erbium atoms and alkali-metal or alkaline-earth-metal atoms.