Cold and ultracold collisions occupy a strategic position at the intersection of several powerful themes of current research in chemical physics, in atomic, molecular and optical physics, and even in condensed matter. The nature of these collisions has important consequences for optical manipulation of inelastic and reactive processes, precision measurement of molecular and atomic properties, matter–wave coherence and quantum-statistical condensates of dilute, weakly interacting atoms. This crucial position explains the wide interest and explosive growth of the field since its inception in 1987. Obviously due to continuing rapid developments the very latest new results cannot appear in book form, but the field is sufficiently mature that a fairly comprehensive account of the principal research themes can now be undertaken. The hope is that this account will prove useful to newcomers seeking a point of entry and as a reference for those already initiated.

After a general introduction and a brief review of the elements of scattering theory in Chapters 1 and 2, the next four chapters treat collisions taking place in the presence of one or more light fields. The reason for this is simply historical. After the development of the physics of optical cooling and trapping from the early to mid 1980s, the first generation of collisions experiments applied this light-force physics to cool and confine atoms in traps and beams.