@article { ISI:000231886000001, title = {Electronic interaction anisotropy between open-shell lanthanide atoms and helium from cold collision experiment}, journal = {JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS}, volume = {123}, number = {10}, year = {2005}, month = {SEP 8}, pages = {101101}, abstract = {Based on measurements of the Zeeman relaxation in a cold gas of He-3 {[}C. I. Hancox, S. C. Doret, M. I. Hummon, L. Luo, and J. M. Doyle, Nature (London) 431, 281 (2004)], we show that the electronic interaction anisotropy between rare-earth atoms with nonzero electronic orbital angular momenta and helium is extremely small. The interaction of the rare-earth atoms with He gives rise to several adiabatic potentials with different electronic symmetries. It is demonstrated that the energy splitting between these potentials does not exceed 0.09 cm(-1) at interatomic distances larger than the turning point for collisions at 0.8 K, including the region of the van der Waals interaction minima. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.}, issn = {0021-9606}, doi = {10.1063/1.2052687}, author = {Krems, RV and Buchachenko, AA} }