Coherent bimolecular reactions with quantum-degenerate matter waves

TL;DR

This paper theoretically demonstrates that certain bimolecular reactions can be driven coherently using quantum-degenerate matter waves, revealing quantum fluctuation effects and non-classical correlations, thus opening new avenues in quantum matter-wave chemistry.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for coherent bimolecular reactions with quantum-degenerate matter waves, highlighting quantum fluctuation effects and non-classical correlations in the process.

Findings

Quantum fluctuations dominate initial reaction stages.

Macroscopic non-classical correlations emerge in final fields.

Comparison of bosonic and fermionic pair creation dynamics.

Abstract

We demonstrate theoretically that the abstraction reaction $A+B_2 \to AB+B$ can be driven coherently and efficiently with quantum-degenerate bosonic or fermionic matter waves. We show that the initial stages of the reaction are dominated by quantum fluctuations, resulting in the appearance of macroscopic non-classical correlations in the final atomic and molecular fields. The dynamics associated with the creation of bosonic and of fermionic dimer-atom pairs are also compared. This study opens up a promising new regime of quantum degenerate matter-wave chemistry.