Cold and ultracold NH-NH collisions in magnetic fields

Janssen, Liesbeth M.C.; Zuchowski, Piotr S.; van der Avoird, Ad; Groenenboom, Gerrit C.; Hutson, Jeremy M.

Abstract

Elastic and spin-changing inelastic collision cross sections are presented for cold and ultracold magnetically trapped NH. The cross sections are obtained from coupled-channel scattering calculations as a function of energy and magnetic field. We specifically investigate the influence of the intramolecular spin-spin, spin-rotation, and intermolecular magnetic dipole coupling on the collision dynamics. It is shown that 15NH is a very suitable candidate for evaporative cooling experiments. The dominant trap-loss mechanism in the ultracold regime originates from the intermolecular dipolar coupling term. At higher energies and fields, intramolecular spin-spin coupling becomes increasingly important. Our qualitative results and conclusions are fairly independent of the exact form of the potential and of the size of the channel basis set.

Citation

Janssen, L. M., Zuchowski, P. S., van der Avoird, A., Groenenboom, G. C., & Hutson, J. M. (2011). Cold and ultracold NH-NH collisions in magnetic fields. Physical Review A, 83(2), Article 022713. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.83.022713

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: Jun 19, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 27, 2013
• Journal: Physical Review A
• Print ISSN: 1050-2947
• Electronic ISSN: 1094-1622
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 83
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 022713
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.83.022713