Electric dipoles vs. magnetic dipoles - for two molecules in a harmonic trap

Abstract

We study energy levels of two heteronuclear molecules moving in a spherically symmetric harmonic trap. A role of electric dipole interactions is compared and contrasted with our earlier results (https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.00631) for two magnetic dipolar atoms. We stress importance of a rotational energy with its value which is very high compared to the energy of dipolar interaction. We show that dipolar forces do not play a significant role in the ground state of the system under typical experimental conditions. However, there exist excited states that exhibit anticrossings similar to the ones observed for magnetic dipoles.