Cold collisions serve
as a sensitive probe of the interaction potential.
In the recent study of Klein et al. (
Nature Phys.
2017
,
13
, 35–38), the one-parameter
scaling of the interaction potential was necessary to obtain agreement
between theoretical and observed patterns of the orbiting resonances
for excited metastable helium atoms colliding with hydrogen molecules.
Here, we show that the effect of nonrigidity of the H
2
molecule
on the resonant structure, absent in the previous study, is critical
to predict the correct positions of the resonances in that case. We
have complemented the theoretical description of the interaction potential
and revised reaction rate coefficients by proper inclusion of the
flexibility of the molecule. The calculated reaction rate coefficients
are in remarkable agreement with the experimental data without empirical
adjustment of the interaction potential. We have shown that even state-of-the-art
calculations of the interaction energy cannot ensure agreement with
the experiment if such an important physical effect as flexibility
of the interacting molecule is neglected. Our findings about the significance
of the nonrigidity effects can be especially crucial in cold chemistry,
where the quantum nature of molecules is pronounced.