The approach to chaos in ultracold atomic and molecular physics: statistics of near-threshold bound states for Li+CaH and Li+CaF

TL;DR

This study investigates the chaotic behavior of near-threshold bound states in ultracold Li+CaH and Li+CaF systems, revealing complex dependencies on angular momentum, quantum numbers, and molecular parameters through statistical analysis.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed statistical analysis of chaos in ultracold atom-molecule systems, highlighting the influence of quantum numbers and molecular parameters on chaotic behavior.

Findings

Li+CaH ($J=0$) exhibits fully chaotic behavior.

Li+CaH with $J>0$ shows reduced chaos due to a conserved quantum number.

Li+CaF ($J=0$) shows less chaos despite stronger coupling.

Abstract

We calculate near-threshold bound states and Feshbach resonance positions for atom + rigid-rotor models of the highly anisotropic systems Li+CaH and Li+CaF. We perform statistical analysis on the resonance positions to compare with the predictions of random matrix theory. For Li+CaH with total angular momentum $J=0$ we find fully chaotic behavior in both the nearest-neighbor spacing distribution and the level number variance. However, for $J>0$ we find different behavior due to the presence of a nearly conserved quantum number. Li+CaF ($J=0$) also shows apparently reduced levels of chaotic behavior despite its stronger effective coupling. We suggest this may indicate the development of another good quantum number relating to a bending motion of the complex. However, continuously varying the rotational constant over a wide range shows unexpected structure in the degree of chaotic behavior, including a dramatic reduction around the rotational constant of CaF. This demonstrates the complexity of the relationship between coupling and chaotic behavior.