Collisions in a dual-species magneto-optical trap of molecules and atoms

Jurgilas, S.; Chakraborty, A.; Rich, C.J.H.; Sauer, B.E.; Frye, Matthew D.; Hutson, Jeremy M.; Tarbutt, MR

Abstract

We study inelastic collisions between CaF molecules and 87Rb atoms in a dual-species magneto-optical trap. The presence of atoms increases the loss rate of molecules from the trap. By measuring the loss rates and density distributions, we determine a collisional loss rate coefficient k2 = (1.43 ± 0.29) × 10−10 cm3 s−1 at a temperature of 2.4 mK. We show that this is not substantially changed by light-induced collisions or by varying the populations of excited-state atoms and molecules. The observed loss rate is close to the universal rate expected in the presence of fast loss at short range, and can be explained by rotation-changing collisions in the ground electronic state.

Citation

Jurgilas, S., Chakraborty, A., Rich, C., Sauer, B., Frye, M. D., Hutson, J. M., & Tarbutt, M. (2021). Collisions in a dual-species magneto-optical trap of molecules and atoms. New Journal of Physics, 23(7), Article 075004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac0c9a

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 18, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jul 8, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-07
• Deposit Date: Oct 7, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 26, 2021
• Journal: New Journal of Physics
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 7
• Article Number: 075004
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac0c9a
• Related Public URLs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.09990