Quasiclassical method for calculating the density of states of ultracold collision complexes

Abstract

We derive a quasiclassical expression for the density of states (DOS) of an arbitrary, ultracold, $N$-atom collision complex, for a general potential energy surface (PES). We establish the accuracy of our quasiclassical method by comparing to exact quantum results for the K$_2$-Rb and NaK-NaK systems, with isotropic model PESs. Next, we calculate the DOS for an accurate NaK-NaK PES to be 0.124~$\mu$K$^{-1}$, with an associated Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus (RRKM) sticking time of 6.0~$\mu$s. We extrapolate the DOS and sticking times to all other polar bialkali-bialkali collision complexes by scaling with atomic masses, equilibrium bond lengths, dissociation energies, and dispersion coefficients. The sticking times calculated here are two to three orders of magnitude shorter than those reported by Mayle et al. [Phys. Rev. A 85, 062712 (2012)]. We estimate dispersion coefficients and collision rates between molecules and complexes. We find that the sticking-amplified three-body loss mechanism is not likely the cause of the losses observed in the experiments.