Cold controlled chemistry

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Recent technological breakthroughs in cryogenic cooling and trapping of molecular ensembles have created an entirely new field of ultracold physics. At unprecedentedly low temperatures, ultracold materials offer access to new states of matter, unachievable by any other means, and new possibilities to study a wide range of fundamental problems in natural sciences. This proposal aims to capitalize on these recent developments in low-temperature physics by establishing a research program to study ultracold chemistry. The proposed research will explore novel methods to create and thermally isolate molecules at temperatures near absolute zero (1 nanoKelvin - 1 Kelvin) and interaction properties of ultracold molecules in electric and magnetic field traps. We will develop theoretical and computational methods to study, for the first time, a wide range of novel phenomena such as the effects of electromagnetic fields on chemical reactivity of atoms and molecules with unpaired electrons, the role of tunable fine interactions in chemical reactions at low temperatures and chemical reactions accompanied by emission or adsorption of laser field photons. We will explore the effects of external space symmetry on chemical interactions of molecules confined in low dimensions by optical laser forces and the interaction properties of ultracold molecules arranged by laser fields in an ordered structure called optical lattice. We propose to design an optical lattice of molecules with collective rotational excitations coupled to laser field photons - a system that will provide new fundamental insights into dynamics of two- and many-body quantum systems and that may find applications in the study of nanoscale quantum optical devices. This work will open up a new research field of cold controlled chemistry and stimulate the development of novel experiments in physical chemistry, atomic, molecular and optical physics and quantum optics. Controlling chemical reactions with electromagnetic fields has long been a sought-after goal of researchers. Due to the rapid progress of the experimental work with molecules at subKelvin temperatures, the conditions are now ripe for the development of the research field of cold controlled chemistry.