Solutions of the Schr\"{o}dinger equation for anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction plus isotropic van der Waals interaction

TL;DR

This paper generalizes a method to solve the Schrödinger equation for systems with anisotropic dipole-dipole and isotropic van der Waals interactions, providing solutions useful for ultra-cold molecule collision studies.

Contribution

It extends Gao's approach to anisotropic long-range potentials, deriving solutions for combined dipole-dipole and van der Waals interactions with angular momentum cutoff.

Findings

Derived asymptotic behaviors of solutions at small and large distances.

Applicable to systems with general long-range potentials involving multiple angular dependencies.

Provides a framework for analyzing ultra-cold polar molecule collisions.

Abstract

By generalizing Bo Gao's approach [Phys. Rev. A 58, 1728 (1998)] for solving the Schr\"{o}dinger equation for an isotropic van der Waals (vdW) potential to the systems with a multi-scale anisotropic long-range interaction, we derive the solutions for the Schr\"{o}dinger equation for an anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction plus an isotropic attractive vdW potential, i.e., ${C_d(1-3\cos^2\theta)}/{r^3}-{C_6}/{r^6}$, which is projected to the subspace with angular momentum $l\leq l_{\rm cut}$, with $l_{\rm cut}$ being an arbitrary angular-momentum cutoff. Here $\theta$ is the polar angle of the coordinate $\boldsymbol{r}$ and $r=|\boldsymbol{r}|$. The asymptotic behaviors of these solutions for $r\rightarrow 0$ and $r\rightarrow \infty$ are obtained. These results can be used in the research of collisions and chemical reactions between ultra-cold polar molecules in a static electric field. Our approach to derive the solutions can be applied to the systems with a general long-range potential $\sum_{\lambda= 2}^{\lambda_{\rm max}} {V_\lambda(\theta,\varphi)}/{r^\lambda}$, with $\varphi$ being the azimuthal angle of $\boldsymbol{r}$, and thus can be used in various problems on molecule-molecule interaction.