Abstract
We have recently demonstrated a general and sensitive method to study low energy collisions that exploits the unique properties of a molecular synchrotron (Van der Poel et al., Phys Rev Lett 120:033402, 2018). In that work, the total cross section for ND3 + Ar collisions was determined from the rate at which ammonia molecules were lost from the synchrotron due to collisions with argon atoms in supersonic beams. This paper provides further details on the experiment. In particular, we derive the model that was used to extract the relative cross section from the loss rate, and present measurements to characterize the spatial and velocity distributions of the stored ammonia molecules and the supersonic argon beams.
Highlights
Review Collision studies at low temperatures are of interest from both a practical and theoretical viewpoint
Cold collision have been studied by sending slow beams of atoms and molecules through trapped samples of calcium ions [28, 29], lithium atoms [30] and OH radicals [31], exploiting the fact that collision signal can be accumulated over long time-intervals
Collisions at a specific collision energy We arrive at the heart of this paper: the collision measurements
Summary
Review Collision studies at low temperatures are of interest from both a practical and theoretical viewpoint. When after a certain number of round-trips the packets are detected, the probe and reference signals are compared to find the rate at which ammonia molecules are lost from the synchrotron due to collisions with the argon beam.
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