SAMOP 2021 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik
MO 9: Poster 2
MO 9.3: Poster
Freitag, 24. September 2021, 17:30–19:30, P
Towards the coherent control of Penning collisions between metastable helium atoms — •Alexandra Tsoukala, Lasse Bienkowski, Tobias Sixt, Nicolas Vanhaecke, Frank Stienkemeier, and Katrin Dulitz — Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Str. 3, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
Our research focuses on understanding the mechanistic details of reactive collisions in order to enable control of their outcome. The coherent control of reactive collisions, which relies on the interference between two or more reaction paths, has been long sought for. We are in the process of realizing an experiment, in which we coherently control the Penning collisions between metastable helium atoms in 23S1 and 21S0 states.
Our control scheme is based on the preparation of a coherent superposition of the MJ=-1 and MJ=+1 quantum states in the He(23S1) via an off-resonant two-photon Rabi excitation scheme. The two states are coupled by light of counter-rotating circular polarization, which also imprints its phase onto each state. By varying the phase difference between the two circularly polarized light components, the relative phase between the involved reaction pathways follows the same trend. This control scheme will allow for a precise tuning of the overall reaction cross section. Our detection scheme is based on the monitoring of ions produced in the collision process using a time-of-flight detector.
In this contribution, I will describe our experimental apparatus and its characterization.