Collisional Control of Ground State Polar Molecules and Universal Dipolar Scattering

TL;DR

This paper investigates how short-range interactions influence ground state polar molecule scattering, revealing a universal dipolar scattering scaling applicable across various quantum systems, with implications for estimating scattering cross sections.

Contribution

It introduces a universal scaling law for dipolar scattering that accounts for short-range interactions, applicable to all quantum dipolar systems.

Findings

Scattering scales with a dimensionless parameter involving mass, dipole moment, and energy.

Universal dipolar scaling law derived for strong dipolar interactions.

Provides estimates for scattering cross sections in diverse dipolar systems.

Abstract

We explore the impact of the short range interaction on the scattering of ground state polar molecules, and study the transition from a weak to strong dipolar scattering over an experimentally reasonable range of energies and electric field values. In the strong dipolar limit, the scattering scales with respect to a dimensionless quantity defined by mass, induced dipole moment, and collision energy. The scaling has implications for all quantum mechanical dipolar scattering, and therefore this universal dipolar scaling provides estimates of scattering cross sections for any dipolar system.