Zeeman relaxation induced by spin-orbit coupling in cold antimony-helium collisions

relaxation induced by spin-orbit coupling in cold antimony-helium collisions. Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. We investigate Zeeman relaxation in cold Sb(4 S • 3/2)–He collisions in a magnetic field. Ensembles of >10 13 laser-ablated Sb atoms are cooled in cryogenic 4 He buffer gas to 800 mK and inelastic collisions are observed to equilibrate the m J-state distribution to the translational temperature. The ratio γ of momentum transfer to inelastic collision rates is measured to be 9.1 × 10 2. We also perform quantum scattering calculations of Sb– 4 He collisions, based on ab initio interaction potentials, that demonstrate significant anisotropy of the ground state induced by the spin-orbit interaction. Agreement is obtained between theory and experiment with a ≈10% increase in the ab initio potential depth. This work suggests that buffer-gas-cooled pnictogen atoms lighter than Sb can be loaded into a magnetic trap.