Collisions between Ultracold Molecules and Atoms in a Magnetic Trap

Abstract

We prepare mixtures of ultracold CaF molecules and Rb atoms in a magnetic trap and study their inelastic collisions. When the atoms are prepared in the spin-stretched state and the molecules in the spinstretched component of the first rotationally excited state, they collide inelastically with a rate coefficient k 2 6.6 AE 1.5 10 -11 cm 3 =s at temperatures near 100 K. We attribute this to rotation-changing collisions. When the molecules are in the ground rotational state we see no inelastic loss and set an upper bound on the spin-relaxation rate coefficient of k 2 < 5.8 10 -12 cm 3 =s with 95% confidence. We compare these measurements to the results of a single-channel loss model based on quantum defect theory. The comparison suggests a short-range loss parameter close to unity for rotationally excited molecules, but below 0.04 for molecules in the rotational ground state.