Homonuclear ultracold elastic $s$-wave collisions of alkali atoms via multichannel quantum defect theory

Abstract

Multichannel quantum defect theory (MQDT) provides a powerful toolkit for describing and understanding collisions of cold alkali atoms. Various MQDT approximations differ primarily in how they characterize the so-called short-ranged $K$-matrix, ${\mathbf K}_{\text{sr}}$, which encapsulates the short-ranged, high-energy physics into a handful of low-energy parameters that exhibit simple and smooth dependence on energy and field. Here, we compare three different methods for computing ${\mathbf K}_{\text{sr}}$ for homonuclear collisions of alkali atoms, from lithium to cesium. The MQDT calculations are benchmarked against numerically converged coupled-channels calculations that use a log-derivative propagator out to the asymptotic region. We study how well these approximations reproduce positions of $s$-wave magnetic Feshbach resonances, comparing to experiment where possible, and identify the limitations of various approximations.