Multichannel quantum defect theory for cold molecular collisions

Multichannel quantum defect theory (MQDT) is shown to be capable of producing quantitatively accurate results for low-energy atom-molecule scattering calculations. With a suitable choice of reference potential and short-range matching distance, it is possible to define a matrix that encapsulates the short-range collision dynamics and is only weakly dependent on energy and magnetic field. Once this has been produced, calculations at additional energies and fields can be performed at a computational cost that is proportional to the number of channels N and not to N-3. MQDT thus provides a promising method for carrying out low-energy molecular scattering calculations on systems where full exploration of the energy dependence and the field dependence is currently impractical.