Ultracold Rb-OH collisions and prospects for sympathetic cooling.
We compute ab initio cross sections for cold collisions of Rb atoms with OH radicals. We predict collision rate constants of order 10(-11) cm3/s at temperatures in the range 10-100 mK at which molecules have already been produced. However, we also find that in these collisions the molecules have a strong propensity for changing their internal state, which could make sympathetic cooling of OH in a Rb buffer gas problematic in magnetostatic or electrostatic traps.
Lara
Manuel
M
JILA, NIST, and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA.
Bohn
John L
JL
Potter
Daniel
D
Soldán
Pavel
P
Hutson
Jeremy M
JM