Inelastic collisions of ultracold triplet Rb$_\textbf{2}$ molecules in the rovibrational ground state

Abstract

Exploring inelastic and reactive collisions on the quantum level is a main goal of the developing field of ultracold chemistry. We present first experimental studies of inelastic collisions of metastable ultracold triplet molecules in the vibrational ground state. The measurements are performed with nonpolar $\textrm{Rb}_2$ dimers which are prepared in precisely-defined quantum states and trapped in an array of quasi-1D potential tubes. In particular, we investigate collisions of molecules in the absolute lowest triplet energy level where any inelastic process requires a change of the electronic state. Nevertheless, we find similar decay rates as for collisions between rotationally or vibrationally excited triplet molecules and they are close to the rates for universal reactions. As anticipated theoretically, the measured decay rate constants vary considerably when confinement and collision energy are changed. This might be exploited to control the collisional properties of molecules.