Resonant collisional shielding of reactive molecules using electric fields.

Abstract

Full control of molecular interactions, including reactive losses, would open new frontiers in quantum science. We demonstrate extreme tunability of ultracold chemical reaction rates by inducing resonant dipolar interactions by means of an external electric field. We prepared fermionic potassium-rubidium molecules in their first excited rotational state and observed a modulation of the chemical reaction rate by three orders of magnitude as we tuned the electric field strength by a few percent across resonance. In a quasi-two-dimensional geometry, we accurately determined the contributions from the three dominant angular momentum projections of the collisions. Using the resonant features, we shielded the molecules from loss and suppressed the reaction rate by an order of magnitude below the background value, thereby realizing a long-lived sample of polar molecules in large electric fields.