Observation of Chemical Reactions between a Trapped Ion and Ultracold Feshbach Dimers
Henrik Hirzler, Rianne S. Lous, Eleanor Trimby, Jesús Pérez‐Ríos, Arghavan Safavi-Naini, R. Gerritsma
Abstract
We measure chemical reactions between a single trapped ^{174}Yb^{+} ion and ultracold Li_{2} dimers. This produces LiYb^{+} molecular ions that we detect via mass spectrometry. We explain the reaction rates by modeling the dimer density as a function of the magnetic field and obtain excellent agreement when we assume the reaction to follow the Langevin rate. Our results present a novel approach towards the creation of cold molecular ions and point to the exploration of ultracold chemistry in ion molecule collisions. What is more, with a detection sensitivity below molecule densities of 10^{14} m^{-3}, we provide a new method to detect low-density molecular gases.