Time-dependent quantum wave packet dynamics to study charge transfer in heavy particle collisions

Abstract

The method of time-dependent quantum wave packet dynamics has been successfully extended to study the charge transfer/exchange process in low energy two-body heavy particle collisions. The collision process is described by coupled-channel equations with diabatic potentials and (radial and rotational) couplings. The time-dependent coupled equations are propagated with the multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree method and the modulo squares of S-matrix is extracted from the wave packet by the flux operator with complex absorbing potential (FCAP) method. The calculations of the charge transfer process 12Σ+ H−(1s2)+Li(1s22s)→22Σ+/32Σ+/12Π H(1s)+Li−(1s22s2l)(l=s,p) at the incident energy of about [0.3, 1.3] eV are illustrated as an example. It shows that the calculated reaction probabilities by the present FCAP reproduce that of quantum-mechanical molecular-orbital close-coupling very well, including the peak structures contributed by the resonances. Since time-dependent external interactions can be directly included in the present FCAP calculations, the successful implementation of FCAP provides us a powerful potential tool to study the quantum control of heavy particle collisions by lasers in the near future.