Magnetic Moments of Lanthanide van der Waals Dimers

TL;DR

This paper investigates the magnetic moments of lanthanide van der Waals dimers, revealing how anisotropic mixing of spin and rotation influences their magnetic properties in ultracold conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a model that identifies different regimes of anisotropic mixing and correlates these with the magnetic moments of the molecules.

Findings

Different regimes of anisotropic mixing are characterized.

Magnetic moments are correlated with the degree of mixing.

Quantum chaos influences the magnetic properties of the dimers.

Abstract

Loosely bound van der Waals dimers of lanthanide atoms, as might be obtained in ultracold atom experiments, are investigated. These molecules are known to exhibit a degree of quantum chaos, due to the strong anisotropic mixing of their angular spin and rotation degrees of freedom. Within a model of these molecules, we identify different realms of this anisotropic mixing, depending on whether the spin, the rotation, or both, are significantly mixed by the anisotropy. These realms are in turn generally correlated with the resulting magnetic moments of the states.