Signatures of Non-universal Quantum Dynamics of Ultracold Chemical Reactions of Polar Alkali Dimer Molecules with Alkali Metal Atoms: Li(2S) + NaLi(a3?+) ? Na(2S)+Li2(a3?u+)

Ultracold chemical reactions of weakly bound triplet-state alkali metal dimer molecules have recently attracted much experimental interest. We perform rigorous quantum scattering calculations with a new ab initio potential energy surface to explore the chemical reaction of spin-polarized NaLi(a3 sigma+) and Li(2S) to form Li2(a3 sigma u+) and Na(2S). The reaction is exothermic and proceeds readily at ultralow temperatures. Significantly, we observe strong sensitivity of the total reaction rate to small variations of the three-body part of the Li2Na interaction at short range, which we attribute to a relatively small number of open Li2(a3 sigma u+) product channels populated in the reaction. This provides the first signature of highly non-universal dynamics seen in rigorous quantum reactive scattering calculations of an ultracold exothermic insertion reaction involving a polar alkali dimer molecule, opening up the possibility of probing microscopic interactions in atom+molecule collision complexes via ultracold reactive scattering experiments.