Long-range interactions between polar bialkali ground-state molecules in arbitrary vibrational levels
Abstract
We have calculated the isotropic coefficients characterizing the long-range van der Waals interaction between two identical heteronuclear alkali-metal diatomic molecules in the same arbitrary vibrational level of their ground electronic state . We consider the ten species made up of Li, Na, K, Rb and Cs. Following our previous work [M.~Lepers \textit{et.~al.}, Phys.~Rev.~A \textbf{88}, 032709 (2013)] we use the sum-over-state formula inherent to the second-order perturbation theory, composed of the contributions from the transitions within the ground state levels, from the transition between ground-state and excited state levels, and from a crossed term. These calculations involve a combination of experimental and quantum-chemical data for potential energy curves and transition dipole moments. We also investigate the case where the two molecules are in different vibrational levels and we show that the Moelwyn-Hughes approximation is valid provided that it is applied for each of the three contributions to the sum-over-state formula. Our results are particularly relevant in the context of inelastic and reactive collisions between ultracold bialkali molecules, in deeply bound or in Feshbach levels.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1502.05636,
title = {Long-range interactions between polar bialkali ground-state molecules in arbitrary vibrational levels},
author = {R. Vexiau and M. Lepers and M. Aymar and N. Bouloufa-Maafa and O. Dulieu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.05636},
year = {2015}
}