AlF-AlF sticking time and prospects for ultracold dimers

Abstract

We report on the sticking time of the AlF dimer in the ultracold regime. We employ a full-dimensional potential energy surface for AlF-AlF, constructed using a machine learning approach [X. Liu et al., J. Chem. Phys. 159, 144103 (2023)], to compute the density of states using a semi-classical counting method. Next, using the Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus (RRKM) theory, we determine a sticking time of 216.3 ns, which is shorter than that of other previously reported dimers. We explain these results in light of the ratio of the dissociation energy of the complex to the dissociation energy of the molecule, yielding a computationally inexpensive scheme to estimate the sticking time of collisional complexes.