Cold and ultracold NH-NH collisions in magnetic fields

Journal Article · Tue Feb 15 04:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.83.022713· OSTI ID:21537164

Janssen, Liesbeth M. C.; Avoird, Ad van der; Groenenboom, Gerrit C ^[1]; Zuchowski, Piotr S; Hutson, Jeremy M ^[2]

---

1. Radboud University Nijmegen, Institute for Molecules and Materials, Heyendaalseweg 135, 6525 AJ Nijmegen (Netherlands)
2. Department of Chemistry, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE (United Kingdom)

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 {sup 15}NH 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.

• OSTI ID: 21537164
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 83; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
COLLISIONS
COOLING
COUPLED CHANNEL THEORY
CROSS SECTIONS
DIPOLES
ENERGY DEPENDENCE
EVAPORATIVE COOLING
HYDRIDES
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
MAGNETIC DIPOLES
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MULTIPOLES
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
NITROGEN HYDRIDES
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
POTENTIALS
SCATTERING
SPIN
TRAPPING