Universality and chaoticity in ultracold K+KRb chemical reactions

Nat Commun. 2017 Jul 19:8:15897. doi: 10.1038/ncomms15897.

Abstract

A fundamental question in the study of chemical reactions is how reactions proceed at a collision energy close to absolute zero. This question is no longer hypothetical: quantum degenerate gases of atoms and molecules can now be created at temperatures lower than a few tens of nanokelvin. Here we consider the benchmark ultracold reaction between, the most-celebrated ultracold molecule, KRb and K. We map out an accurate ab initio ground-state potential energy surface of the K2Rb complex in full dimensionality and report numerically-exact quantum-mechanical reaction dynamics. The distribution of rotationally resolved rates is shown to be Poissonian. An analysis of the hyperspherical adiabatic potential curves explains this statistical character revealing a chaotic distribution for the short-range collision complex that plays a key role in governing the reaction outcome.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.