Shielding collisions of ultracold CaF molecules with static electric fields

We study collisions of ultracold CaF molecules in strong static electric fields. Such fields allow the creation of long-range barriers in the interaction potential, which prevent the molecules reaching the short-range region where inelastic and other loss processes are likely to occur. We carry out coupled-channel calculations of rate coefficients for elastic scattering and loss. We develop an efficient procedure for including energetically well-separated rotor functions in the basis set via a Van Vleck transformation. We show that shielding is particularly efficient for CaF and allows the rate of 2-body loss processes to be reduced by a factor of $10^7$ or more at a field of 23 kV/cm. The loss rates remain low over a substantial range of fields. Electron and nuclear spins cause strong additional loss in some small ranges of field, but have little effect elsewhere. The results pave the way for evaporative cooling of CaF towards quantum degeneracy.