Creation and dynamics of ultracold molecules in external electromagnetic fields

该研究将探索在接近绝对零度（1纳米开尔文- 1开尔文）的温度下创造和热隔离分子的新方法，通过外部电场和磁场操纵和控制超冷分子的碰撞和化学反应的机制，以及超冷分子的统计特性，如零开尔文温度下的扩散。超冷分子是一个新领域（不到8年），它正在迅速发展。超冷分子的潜在应用范围从自然界基本对称性的测试，到量子计算，到分子间势的精细细节的研究，再到量子反应速率理论的严格测试。我们的工作将有助于在亚开尔文温度下冷却和捕获分子的实验技术的发展，从而扩大超冷分子领域的范围。我们的工作将是第一个研究在外加电场和磁场下的超冷化学反应的工作。用电磁场控制化学反应一直是研究人员追求的目标。化学反应的外场控制不仅可以使化学家有选择性地产生所需的物质，而且可以揭示化学反应的机理，获得决定化学反应的相互作用的信息，阐明非绝热效应和相对论效应在化学动力学中的作用。当分子的平动能小于与外场相互作用引起的微扰时，外场可能会影响分子碰撞。由于超冷分子实验工作的迅速进展，目前发展受控超冷化学领域的条件已经成熟。

The proposed research will explore novel methods to create and thermally isolate molecules at temperatures near absolute zero (1 nanoKelvin - 1 Kelvin), mechanisms to manipulate and control collisions and chemical reactions of ultracold molecules by external electric and magnetic fields, and statistical properties of ultracold molecules such as diffusion at zero Kelvin temperature. The field of ultracold molecules is new (less than 8 years old) and it is very rapidly expanding. Potential applications of ultracold molecules range from tests of fundamental symmetries of nature, to quantum computation, to studies of fine details of intermolecular potentials, to rigorous tests of quantum reaction rate theories. Our work will assist the development of experimental techniques for cooling and trapping molecules at subKelvin temperatures, thus expanding the scope of the field of ultracold molecules. Ours will be the first work on ultracold chemical reactions in external electric and magnetic fields. Controlling chemical reactions with electromagnetic fields has long been a sought-after goal of researchers. External field control of chemical reactions will not only allow chemists to selectively produce desired species, but also reveal mechanisms of chemical reactions, yield information on interactions determining chemical reactions and elucidate the role of non-adiabatic and relativistic effects in chemical dynamics. External fields may influence molecular collisions when the translational energy of the molecules is smaller than the perturbation due to interactions with external fields. Due to the rapid progress of the experimental work with ultracold molecules, the conditions are now ripe for the development of the field of controlled ultracold chemistry.