Time delays in ultracold atomic and molecular collisions

Abstract

We study the behavior of the Eisenbud-Wigner collisional time delay around Feshbach resonances in cold and ultracold atomic and molecular collisions. We carry out coupled-channel scattering calculations on ultracold Rb and Cs collisions. In the low-energy limit, the time delay is proportional to the scattering length and so exhibits a pole as a function of applied field. At high energy, it exhibits a Lorentzian peak as a function of either energy or field. For narrow resonances, the crossover between these two regimes occurs at an energy proportional to the square of the resonance strength parameter sres. For wider resonances, the behavior is more complicated and we present an analysis in terms of multichannel quantum defect theory.