Cold TiO(X 3Δ)-He collisions

We use laser ablation and cryogenic helium buffer-gas cooling to produce large numbers of X (3)Delta(1) TiO molecules at a translational temperature of 5 K. We investigate their cold collisions with helium and measure elastic and inelastic scattering cross-sections. As expected for (3)Delta molecules, which have large spin-rotation couplings, TiO's inelastic m-changing collision cross-section is large: on the same order as its momentum transfer cross-section.