# Ultracold homonuclear and heteronuclear collisions in metastable helium

## TL;DR

This paper presents quantum-mechanical calculations of scattering and ionization rates for ultracold metastable helium collisions, covering homonuclear and heteronuclear systems over a wide temperature range, with comparisons to experimental and prior models.

## Contribution

It provides detailed quantum calculations of ultracold helium collision cross sections using accurate molecular potentials and includes spin effects, advancing understanding beyond semi-classical models.

## Key findings

- Calculated cross sections and rates for helium collisions from 1 μK to 1 K.
- Included effects of spin polarization and ionization loss channels.
- Compared results with experimental data and previous models.

## Abstract

Scattering and ionizing cross sections and rates are calculated for ultracold collisions between metastable helium atoms using a fully quantum-mechanical close-coupled formalism. Homonuclear collisions of the bosonic ${}^{4}$He$^{*} +{}^{4}$He$^{*}$ and fermionic ${}^{3}$He$^{*} + {}^{3}$He$^{*}$ systems, and heteronuclear collisions of the mixed ${}^{3}$He$^{*} +{}^{4}$He$^{*}$ system, are investigated over a temperature range 1 $\mu$K to 1 K. Carefully constructed Born-Oppenheimer molecular potentials are used to describe the electrostatic interaction between the colliding atoms, and complex optical potentials used to represent loss through ionization from the ${}^{1,3}\Sigma $ states. Magnetic spin-dipole mediated transitions from the ${}^{5}\Sigma $ state are included and results reported for spin-polarized and unpolarized systems. Comparisons are made with experimental results, previous semi-classical models, and a perturbed single channel model.