Demonstrating beam splitters for reaction pathways in the field of cold chemistry

Details
Speaker Name/Affiliation
Johannes Hecker Denschlag, Institut für Quantenmaterie, Universität Ulm
When
-
Seminar Type
Seminar Type Other
Visiting Fellow Talk
Location (Room)
JILA Auditorium
Event Details & Abstracts

Our group studies chemical reactions of ultracold Rb atoms in a state-to-state
resolved fashion, where we prepare reactants in well defined quantum states and
measure the quantum states of the molecular products. In particular, we focus on
three-body recombination where three atoms collide, forming a diatomic molecule.
The  third   atom carries  away  part  of  the  binding   energy.   We are  currently
investigating methods to gain control over this chemical reaction. By making use of
either a magnetically tunable Feshbach resonance or an avoided crossing of
molecular levels we can effectively construct different kinds of beam splitters for
the reaction pathways. The idea is to resonantly admix at specific points of the
reaction coordinate additional quantum states to the original collision complex.
This opens up an additional pathway that the reaction can take. By tuning the
magnetic field in our experiments, we can control these beam splitters and can
redirect a sizeable fraction of the reaction flux between different product channels.
These beam splitters are fully coherent and, in the future, it should be possible to
use them also in interferometric schemes for controlling the reaction.

Reception to follow in h-bar