Incomplete optical shielding in cold atom traps: Three-dimensional Landau-Zener theory

Ultracold atom collisions in the presence of a linearly polarized blueshifted laser field are studied theoretically. An analytical solution is presented within the framework of the Landau-Zener approximation. The effect of incomplete shielding is mostly accounted for by incorporating the three-dimensional character of the collisions, using a partial-wave analysis with space degeneracy. A model of two electronic states, including effects of indistinguishability of the colliding atoms, is used. The model associates the incomplete shielding with a process involving two crossing points. The theory is applied to the case of metastable xenon traps, obtaining a fair agreement with the experimental data.