Control of reactive collisions by quantum interference
Name
2109.03944.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
4.55 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
57579fcfebd833f2306c8298d8da2836
Author(s)
Son, Hyungmok
Park, Juliana J
Lu, Yu-Kun
Jamison, Alan O
Karman, Tijs
Ketterle, Wolfgang
Date Issued
March 4, 2022
Journal
Science
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Citation
Son, Hyungmok, Park, Juliana J, Lu, Yu-Kun, Jamison, Alan O, Karman, Tijs et al. 2022. "Control of reactive collisions by quantum interference." Science, 375 (6584).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
In this study, we achieved magnetic control of reactive scattering in an ultracold mixture of 23 Na atoms and 23 Na 6 Li molecules. In most molecular collisions, particles react or are lost near short range with unity probability, leading to the so-called universal rate. By contrast, the Na + NaLi system was shown to have only ~4% loss probability in a fully spin-polarized state. By controlling the phase of the scattering wave function via a Feshbach resonance, we modified the loss rate by more than a factor of 100, from far below to far above the universal limit. The results are explained in analogy with an optical Fabry-Perot resonator by interference of reflections at short and long range. Our work demonstrates quantum control of chemistry by magnetic fields with the full dynamic range predicted by our models.
In this study, we achieved magnetic control of reactive scattering in an ultracold mixture of 23 Na atoms and 23 Na 6 Li molecules. In most molecular collisions, particles react or are lost near short range with unity probability, leading to the so-called universal rate. By contrast, the Na + NaLi system was shown to have only ~4% loss probability in a fully spin-polarized state. By controlling the phase of the scattering wave function via a Feshbach resonance, we modified the loss rate by more than a factor of 100, from far below to far above the universal limit. The results are explained in analogy with an optical Fabry-Perot resonator by interference of reflections at short and long range. Our work demonstrates quantum control of chemistry by magnetic fields with the full dynamic range predicted by our models.
MIT Department
MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abl7257
