We study the interactions between two Rb atoms and one Rb ion from a quantum chemistry perspective, considering the Rb+Rb and Rb+Rb arrangements. These interactions are relevant for the fundamental chemistry, sympathetic cooling, and three-body recombination (TBR) processes at ultra-low temperatures observed in hybrid ion-atom experiments for homo- and hetero-alkali ion-atom species, with Rb (or Ba, Ca)+Rb+Rb. Formation of Rb has recently been observed in inelastic collisions of a single cold Rb in a BEC of Rb atoms [1,2]. Another experiment has reported probable formation of molecular Rb in an hybrid ion-atom trap [3]. We start by calculating the electronic structure of the Rb ion using various approaches involving both large-core and small-core effective core potentials. We find that for specific geometry configurations, state-selective charge exchange reactions would occur for the ion-molecule Rb+Rb system. We extend our investigations toward the large distance domain to elaborate on the transition from atom-molecule to three-atom configurations relevant to TBR, which could be responsible for molecular collision products Rb and Rb. We show the generalization of these results for any alkali homo-nuclear three-body ion-molecule and ion-atom-atom systems.
Supported by the COCOTRAMOS project (Grant No. ANR-21-CE30-0060-01 “Agence Nationale de la Recherche”).
References
[1] T. Dieterle, M. Berngruber, C. H\"{o}lzl, R. L\"{o}w, K. Jachymski, T. Pfau, and F. Meinert, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 033401 (2021)
[2] T. Dieterle, M. Berngruber, C. H\"{o}lzl, R. L\"{o}w, K. Jachymski, T. Pfau, and F. Meinert, Phys. Rev. A 102, 041301 (2020).
[3] A. H\"{a}rter, A. Kr\"{u}kow, A. Brunner, W. Schnitzler, S. Schmid, and J. H. Denschlag, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 123201 (2012).