Unraveling the Stereodynamics of Cold Controlled HD−H2 Collisions

Authors

James F. E. Croft, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Naduvalath Balakrishnan, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Meng Huang, University of New Mexico
Hua Guo, University of New Mexico

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-11-2018

Publication Title

Physical Review Letters

Volume

121

Issue

11

First page number:

1

Last page number:

5

Abstract

Measuring inelastic rates with partial-wave resolution requires temperatures close to a Kelvin or below, even for the lightest molecule. In a recent experiment, Perreault, Mukherjee, and Zare [Nat. Chem. 10, 561 (2018).] studied collisional relaxation of excited HD molecules in the v=1, j=2 state by para- and ortho-H2 at a temperature of about 1 K, extracting the angular distribution of scattered HD in the v=1, j=0 state. By state preparation of the HD molecules, control of the angular distribution of scattered HD was demonstrated. Here, we report a first-principles simulation of that experiment which enables us to attribute the main features of the observed angular distribution to a single L=2 partial-wave shape resonance. Our results demonstrate important stereodynamical insights that can be gained when numerically exact quantum scattering calculations are combined with experimental results in the few-partial-wave regime.

Disciplines

Chemistry | Physics

File Format

pdf

File Size

580 Kb

Language

English

Repository Citation

Croft, J. F., Balakrishnan, N., Huang, M., Guo, H. (2018). Unraveling the Stereodynamics of Cold Controlled HD−H2 Collisions. Physical Review Letters, 121(11), 1-5.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.113401