Collisions of Spin-polarized YO Molecules for Single Partial Waves

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2404.06652
• Publication Date: 2024-04-09
• Authors: Justin J. Burau; Kameron Mehling; Matthew D. Frye; Mengjie Chen; Parul Aggarwal; Jeremy M. Hutson; Jun Ye
• Keywords: Spin wave

Efficient sub-Doppler laser cooling and optical trapping of YO molecules offer new opportunities to study collisional dynamics in the quantum regime. Confined a crossed dipole trap, we achieve highest phase-space density $2.5 \times 10^{-5}$ for bulk laser-cooled molecular sample. This sets stage YO-YO collisions microkelvin temperature regime, reveal state-dependent, single-partial-wave two-body loss rates. We determine partial-wave contributions specific rotational states (first excited $N=1$ ground $N=0$) following two strategies. First, measure change collision rate spin mixture by tuning kinetic energy with respect p- d-wave centrifugal barriers. Second, compare rates between spin-polarized state $N=0$. Using defect theory partially absorbing boundary condition at short range, show that dependence on can be reproduced presence or f-wave resonance, $N=0$ p-wave resonance.