Cold Chemistry

Book excerpt: Recent years have seen tremendous progress in research on cold and controlled molecular collisions, both in theory and in experiment. The advent of techniques to prepare cold and ultracold molecules and ions, to store them in optical lattices or in charged quasicristalline structures, and to use them in crossed or merged beam experiments have opened many new possibilities to study the most fundamental aspects of molecular interactions. At the same time, theoretical work has made progress in tackling these problems and accurately describing quantum effects in complex systems, and in proposing viable options to control chemical reactions at ultralow energies. Through tutorials on both the theoretical and experimental aspects of research in cold and ultracold molecular collisions, this book provides advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and researchers with the foundations needed to understand this exciting field.