There has been a long-standing quest to observe chemical reactions at
low temperatures where reaction rates and pathways are governed by
quantum mechanical effects. So far this field of Quantum Chemistry has
been dominated by theory. The difficulty has been to realize in the
laboratory low enough collisional velocities between neutral reactants,
so that the quantum wave nature could be observed. We will discuss our
merged neutral supersonic beams method that enabled the observation of
clear quantum effects in low temperature reactions. We observed orbiting
resonances in the Penning ionization reaction of argon and molecular
hydrogen with metastable helium leading to a sharp increase in the
absolute reaction rate in the energy range corresponding to a few
degrees kelvin down to 10 mK. Our method is widely applicable to many
canonical chemical reactions, and will enable experimental studies of
Quantum Chemistry.
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