Stereodynamical Control of Cold Collisions between Two Aligned <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">D</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math> Molecules
Pablo G. Jambrina, James F. E. Croft, Junxiang Zuo, Hua Guo, N. Balakrishnan, F. J. Aoiz
Abstract
Resonant scattering of optically state-prepared and aligned molecules in the cold regime allows the most detailed interrogation and control of bimolecular collisions. This technique has recently been applied to collisions of two aligned ortho-D_{2} molecules prepared in the j=2 rotational level of the v=2 vibrational manifold using the Stark-induced adiabatic Raman passage technique. Here, we develop the theoretical formalism for describing four-vector correlations in collisions of two aligned molecules and apply our approach to state-prepared D_{2}(v=2,j=2)+D_{2}(v=2,j=2)→D_{2}(v=2,j=2)+D_{2}(v=2,j=0) collisions, making possible the simulations of the experimental results from first principles. Key features of the experimental angular distributions are reproduced and attributed primarily to a partial wave resonance with orbital angular momentum ℓ=4.