Frankfurt 2006 – scientific programme
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MO: Molekülphysik
MO 54: Cold Molecules II
MO 54.1: Talk
Thursday, March 16, 2006, 14:00–14:15, H10
Ultracold atom-molecule collisions — •Stephan Kraft1, Peter Staanum1,2, Jörg Lange1, Roland Wester1, and Matthias Weidemüller1 — 1Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany — 2Institut für Quantenoptik, Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany
In the last years the field of ultracold molecules has developed rapidly and production and trapping of cold molecules has been demonstrated with different methods in several laboratories. The next step towards controlled ultracold chemistry is the investigantion of interactions between ultracold atoms and molecules.
In this talk we report on the first observations of state-resolved ultracold collisions between atoms and molecules [1]. Cs and Cs2 dimers in the triplet electronic ground state are trapped in a quasi electrostatic dipole trap. In the collisions internal excitation energy is converted into kinetic energy which leads to a loss of atoms and molecules from the dipole trap. From the measured loss rates we determine collision rate coefficients β ∼ 10−10 cm3/s which are independent of the vibrational and rotational states indicating unitary limited cross sections. The collision rate coefficients are six times larger than the s-wave collision limit showing that s-, p- and d-waves contribute as expected at the collision temperature of 60µK.
[1] P. Staanum et al., arXiv:physics/0509123 (Phys. Rev. Lett. in print)