Robust Coherent Control of Bimolecular Collisions beyond the Ultracold Regime

Quantum coherent control of bimolecular collisions beyond the ultracold regime can face a major challenge due to the incoherent addition of different partial wave contributions to the total scattering cross section. These contributions become increasingly numerous as the collision energy increases,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-06
Main Authors: Devolder, Adrien, Brumer, Paul, Tscherbul, Timur
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atomic collisions
Coherent scattering
Cold atoms
Predictive control
Robust control
Scattering cross sections
Spin exchange
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Quantum coherent control of bimolecular collisions beyond the ultracold regime can face a major challenge due to the incoherent addition of different partial wave contributions to the total scattering cross section. These contributions become increasingly numerous as the collision energy increases, leading to a loss of overall control. Here, we overcome this limitation by leveraging the recently discovered Partial Wave Phase Locking (PWPL) effect, which synchronizes the oscillations of all partial wave contributions. By using rigorous quantum scattering calculations, we demonstrate that PWPL enables coherent control of spin exchange in ion-atom collisions, far outside the ultracold regime, even with as many as 5000 partial wave contributions. The predicted extent of control is sufficient to be measurable in cold atom-ion hybrid experiments.
ISSN:2331-8422