Quenching of vibrationally excited molecules by ultracold collisions with ions: Controlling the scattering via changes of internal states

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Published 1 February 2007 Europhysics Letters Association
, , Citation E. Bodo and F. A. Gianturco 2007 EPL 77 33001 DOI 10.1209/0295-5075/77/33001

0295-5075/77/3/33001

Abstract

Inducing low-energy p-wave resonances by an additional external electric field has been shown recently to be a possible way of controlling ultra-low energy atomic collisions (Krems R. V., Phys. Rev. Lett., 96 (2006) 123202). We show here by calculation that also in molecular systems with long-range interactions there exist internal states for which a low energy p-wave resonance is clearly contributing to the scattering even at ultra-low energies, and that for this collisional regime the scattering length turns out to be positive. We thus present results for the vibrational relaxation cross-sections of H2, prepared in different vibrational states, in collision with Li+ in that energy regime and examine the changes in scattering attributes, both in the elastic and inelastic channels, when the internal vibrational state of H2 is modified.

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