Published in
American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 2(96), 2006
DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.96.023202
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Atom-molecule collisions in an optically trapped gas
,
Daniel Comparat,
Pierre Pillet
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Abstract
Cold inelastic collisions between confined cesium (Cs) atoms and Cs$_2$ molecules are investigated inside a CO$_2$ laser dipole trap. Inelastic atom-molecule collisions can be observed and measured with a rate coefficient of $∼ 2.5 \times 10^{-11}\,$cm$^3$ s$^{-1}$, mainly independent of the molecular ro-vibrational state populated. Lifetimes of purely atomic and molecular samples are essentially limited by rest gas collisions. The pure molecular trap lifetime ranges 0,3-1 s, four times smaller than the atomic one, as is also observed in a pure magnetic trap. We give an estimation of the inelastic molecule-molecule collision rate to be $∼ 10^{-11}$ cm$^{3}$ s$^{-1}$.