Phys. Rev. A 71, 022709 (2005) [10 pages]Influence of magnetic fields on cold collisions of polar moleculesReceived 22 September 2004; published 16 February 2005 We consider cold collisions of OH molecules in the 2Π3∕2 ground state, under the influence of a magnetic field. We find that modest fields of several thousand gauss can act to suppress inelastic collisions of weak-field-seeking states by two orders of magnitude. We attribute this suppression to two factors: (i) an indirect coupling of the entrance and the exit channel, in contrast to the effect of an applied electric field; and (ii) the relative shift of the entrance and exit scattering thresholds. In view of these results, magnetic trapping of OH may prove feasible. © 2005 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.71.022709
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.71.022709
PACS:
34.20.Cf, 34.50.−s, 05.30.Fk
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