Rotational Alignment Decay and Decoherence of Molecular Superrotors

TL;DR

This paper develops a quantum master equation to describe the decay and decoherence of molecular superrotors in a thermal gas, linking microscopic scattering to observable rotational dynamics, and validates it against experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed quantum master equation for superrotor dynamics that connects microscopic scattering amplitudes to macroscopic decay and decoherence rates.

Findings

Alignment decay rate matches experimental data for high rotational energies.

Derived scattering amplitudes for anisotropic van der Waals interactions.

Provides a theoretical framework for understanding superrotor decoherence.

Abstract

We present the quantum master equation describing the coherent and incoherent dynamics of a rapidly rotating molecule in presence of a thermal background gas. The master equation relates the rate of rotational alignment decay and decoherence to the microscopic scattering amplitudes, which we calculate for anisotropic van der Waals scattering. For large rotational energies, we find excellent agreement of the resulting alignment decay rate with recent superrotor experiments.