Precision measurement of quasi-bound resonances in H2 and the H + H scattering length

Abstract

Quasi-bound resonances of are produced via two-photon photolysis of S molecules as reactive intermediates or transition states and detected before decay of the parent molecule into three separate atoms. As was previously reported [K. F. Lai et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 183001 (2021)] four centrifugally bound quantum resonances with lifetimes of multiple μs, lying energetically above the dissociation limit of the electronic ground state of , were observed as , , , and , while also the short-lived ( ns) quasi-bound resonance was probed. The present paper gives a detailed account on the identification of the quasi-bound or shape resonances, based on laser detection via - two-photon transitions, and their strongly enhanced Franck-Condon factors due to the shifting of the wave function density to large internuclear separation. In addition, the assignment of the rotational quantum number is verified by subsequent multi-step laser excitation into autoionisation continuum resonances. Existing frameworks of full-fledged ab initio computations for the bound region in , including Born-Oppenheimer, adiabatic, non-adiabatic, relativistic and quantum-electrodynamic contributions, are extended into the energetic range above the dissociation energy. These comprehensive calculations are compared to the accurate measurements of energies of quasi-bound resonances, finding excellent agreement. They show that the quasi-bound states are in particular sensitive to non-adiabatic contributions to the potential energy. From the potential energy curve and the correction terms, now tested at high accuracy over a wide range of energies and internuclear separations, the s-wave scattering length for singlet H+H scattering is determined at . It is for the first time that such an accurate value for a scattering length is determined based on fully ab initio methods including effects of adiabatic, non-adiabatic, relativistic and QED with contributions up to .