Molecular collisions: From near-cold to ultra-cold

In the past two decades, the revolutionary technologies of creating cold and ultracold molecules have provided cutting-edge experiments for studying the fundamental phenomena of collision physics. To a large degree, the recent explosion of interest in the molecular collisions has been sparked by dramatic progress of experimental capabilities and theoretical methods, which permit molecular collisions to be explored deep in the quantum mechanical limit. Tremendous experimental advances in the field have already been achieved, and the authors, from an experimental perspective, provide a review of these studies for exploring the nature of molecular collisions occurring at temperatures ranging from the Kelvin to the nanoKelvin regime, as well as for applications of producing ultracold molecules.

Automated summary

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest in molecular collisions, largely due to advances in experimental capabilities and theoretical methods allowing for in-depth exploration of molecular collisions at the quantum mechanical limit. Significant experimental progress has already been achieved in the field, with researchers providing a review of these studies and exploring the nature of molecular collisions occurring at temperatures ranging from Kelvin to nanoKelvin, as well as applications for producing ultracold molecules.