Stopping molecular rotation using coherent ultra-low-energy magnetic manipulations.

Rotational motion lies at the heart of intermolecular, molecule-surface chemistry and cold molecule science, motivating the development of methods to excite and de-excite rotations. Existing schemes involve perturbing the molecules with photons or electrons which supply or remove energy comparable to the rotational level spacing. Here, we study the possibility of de-exciting the molecular rotation of a D2 molecule, from a J=2 to the non-rotating J=0 state, without using an energy-matched perturbation. We show that a magnetic field which splits the rotational projection states by only pico eV, can change the probability that a molecule-surface collision will stop a molecule from rotating and lose rotational energy which is 9 orders larger than that of the magnetic manipulation. Calculations confirm the origin of the control scheme, but also underestimate rotational flips (Δm_J≠0), highlighting the importance of the results as a sensitive benchmark for further developing theoretical models of molecule-surface interactions.