Abstract
Energy distributions of and ions produced in ultracold collisions are presented. These helium metastable atoms are trapped and cooled in a magneto-optical trap, and have a temperature of Initial kinetic energies of the product and ions are analyzed in energy, using a weak electrostatic extraction field in combination with a time-of-flight technique. A pronounced structure is observed in the ion distribution, which can be well explained by a theoretical model that considers the avoided crossings between only three metastable states of the transient molecule. The measured distribution has a width that is consistent with the maximum recoil energy of 1.1 meV.
- Received 25 January 2002
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.66.022703
©2002 American Physical Society