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Published on: July 27, 2018
Observation of Chemical Reactions between a Trapped Ion and Ultracold Feshbach Dimers
H Hirzler1, R S Lous1, E Trimby1
1Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute, Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam, 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
We measure chemical reactions between a single trapped ^{174}Yb^{+} ion and ultracold Li_{2} dimers. This produces LiYb^{+} molecular ions that we detect via mass spectrometry. We explain the reaction rates by modeling the dimer density as a function of the magnetic field and obtain excellent agreement when we assume the reaction to follow the Langevin rate. Our results present a novel approach towards the creation of cold molecular ions and point to the exploration of ultracold chemistry in ion molecule collisions. What is more, with a detection sensitivity below molecule densities of 10^{14} m^{-3}, we provide a new method to detect low-density molecular gases.
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