Cold controlled chemistry

最近在低温冷却和捕获分子系综方面的技术突破创造了一个全新的超低温物理学领域。在前所未有的低温下，超冷材料提供了进入物质新状态的途径，这是任何其他方法都无法实现的，并为研究自然科学中广泛的基本问题提供了新的可能性。这项提议旨在通过建立一个研究项目来研究超冷化学，从而利用低温物理学的这些最新发展。这项拟议的研究将探索在绝对零度附近(1纳米开尔文-1开尔文)创建和热隔离分子的新方法，以及超冷分子在电场和磁场陷阱中的相互作用特性。我们将首次发展理论和计算方法来研究广泛的新现象，例如电磁场对原子和分子与未成对电子的化学反应的影响，可调精细相互作用在低温化学反应中的作用，以及伴随着激光场光子发射或吸收的化学反应。我们将探索外部空间对称性对光学激光作用力限制的低维分子的化学相互作用的影响，以及激光排列在称为光学晶格的有序结构中的超冷分子的相互作用性质。我们建议设计一个集体转动激发与激光场光子耦合的分子光学晶格，该系统将为二体和多体量子系统的动力学提供新的基本见解，并可能在纳米级量子光学器件的研究中找到应用。这项工作将开辟冷控化学的新研究领域，促进物理化学、原子、分子和光学物理以及量子光学等新实验的发展。利用电磁场控制化学反应一直是研究人员追求的目标。由于分子在亚开尔文温度下的实验工作的快速进展，目前发展冷控化学研究领域的条件已经成熟。

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.