Atomic and Molecular Physics — Computational Electronic Structure Methods — Heavy Atoms and Molecules for Precision Measurements — Bonds in Hybrid Lanthanide Molecules — Scattering Among Ultracold Atoms
Research Summary
Svetlana Kotochigova’s theoretical research is at the interface of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics. Her quantitative quantum-mechanical modeling of the interactions and collisions among laser-cooled atoms and molecules is geared towards exploring spectroscopic properties of highly magnetic lanthanide molecules and determining electronic properties of molecules that contain a radioactive isotope with an octupole deformed nucleus. Kotochigova performs high accuracy relativistic electronic-structure calculations relying on state-of-the-art computational chemistry tools such as the Dirac computational suite and coupled-cluster theory to improve the treatment of nonadiabatic effects of molecules containing heavy atoms and to determine the electronic enhancement factor multiplying the nuclear Schiff moment originated from the deformed nuclei.
Education
PHD, Saint Petersburg University RF, 1986
MS, Saint Petersburg University RF, 1982
Selected Publications
- Jacek Kłos, Eite Tiesinga, Lan Cheng, and Svetlana Kotochigova, "Anisotropic chemical bonding of lanthanide-OH molecules". Nature. Scientific Reports, 15:21480 (2025).
Hui Li, Eite Tiesinga, Ming Li, and Svetlana Kotochigova, "Spin-dynamics of pairs of submerged-4f-shell atoms in cylindrically symmetric harmonic traps: connecting multi-channel models to effective analytical approaches". New J. Phys. 27, 043017 (2025).
Eite Tiesinga, Jacek Klos, Hui Li, Svetlana Kotochigova, and David DeMille, "Ultracold silver-atom collisions and the formation of silver dimers by photo- and magneto-association". Phys. Rev. A 111, 062814 (2025).
H. da Silva Jr., B. K. Kendrick, H. Li, S. Kotochigova, and N. Balakrishnan, "Nonadiabatically Driven Quantum Interference Effects in the Ultracold K + KRb → Rb + K2 Chemical Reaction". J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 16, 24 (2025).
Svetlana Kotochigova, Qingze Guan, Eite Tiesinga, Vito Scarola, Brian DeMarco, and Bryce Gadway, "Rotational magic conditions for ultracold molecules in the presence of Raman and Rayleigh scattering". New J. Phys. 26, 063025 (2024).
Awards
- Fellow of the American Physical Society (since 2012)
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