Controlling ultracold chemical reactions via Rydberg-dressed interactions*

Chemical reactions in the cold and ultracold temperature regimes are sensitive to the long-range interaction between reactants. This is especially the case when there is a weakly bound state near the collision threshold. Altering the long-range potential provides a tool to control the chemical reaction by shifting the position of near threshold bound states. In this work, we study the effect of Rydberg-dressing a reactant, which can be accomplished experimentally by weakly coupling its ground state to a Rydberg state using a strongly detuned laser. This leads to an enhancement in the effective polarizability of the reactant and hence a modification of the long-range interaction. We theoretically investigate this effect in the benchmark system H$_2$+D, and carry out a full quantum mechanical scattering calculation for the reaction rates.