Feshbach Resonances in Cold Collisions: Benchmarking State-of-the-Art Ab Initio Potential Energy Surfaces.

Area of Science:

• Physical Chemistry
• Chemical Physics
• Computational Chemistry

Background:

• High-quality potential energy surfaces (PESs) are crucial for accurate atomistic simulations.
• Validating PESs requires comparison with experimental data.
• The Ne-H2+ system presents a strongly interacting benchmark case.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if cold collision measurements can validate and differentiate between advanced PESs for Ne-H2+.
• To assess the sensitivity of experimental observables to PES accuracy.

Main Methods:

• Simulations using quantum and classical dynamics approaches.
• Analysis of final state distributions from cold collisions.
• Theoretical modeling of metastable intermediate states and Feshbach resonances.

Main Results:

• Final state distributions effectively identify PESs accurately describing long-range interactions.
• Resolving individual Feshbach resonances requires modest increases in experimental energy resolution.
• This allows for quantitative probing of short and intermediate-range interactions.

Conclusions:

• Cold collision experiments, particularly final state distributions, are powerful tools for validating PESs.
• Enhanced experimental energy resolution provides deeper insights into interatomic interactions.
• The Ne-H2+ system serves as a critical testbed for PES development and validation.