Molecules near absolute zero and external field control of atomic and molecular dynamics

Abstract

This article reviews the current state of the art in the field of cold and ultracold molecules and demonstrates that chemical reactions, inelastic collisions and dissociation of molecules at subkelvin temperatures can be manipulated with external electric or magnetic fields. The creation of ultracold molecules may allow for spectroscopy measurements with extremely high precision and tests of fundamental symmetries of nature, quantum computation with molecules as qubits, and controlled chemistry. The probability of chemical reactions and collisional energy transfer can be very large at temperatures near zero kelvin. The collision energy of ultracold atoms and molecules is much smaller than perturbations due to interactions with external electric or magnetic fields available in the laboratory. External fields may therefore be used to induce dissociation of weakly bound molecules, stimulate forbidden electronic transitions, suppress the effect of centrifugal barriers in outgoing reaction channels or tune Feshbach resonances that enhance chemical reactivity.