  In the past, light-assisted cold collisions between laser cooled atoms have
been widely studied in magneto-optical atom traps (MOTs). We describe here
theoretical studies of dynamical interactions, specifically cold collisions,
between atoms trapped in near-resonant, dissipative optical lattices. The
developed quantum-mechanical model is based on Monte Carlo wave-function
simulations and combines atomic cooling and collision dynamics in a single
framework. It turns out, that the radiative heating mechanism affects the
dynamics of atomic cloud in a red-detuned lattice in a way that is not directly
expected from the MOT studies. The optical lattice and position dependent
light-matter coupling introduces selectivity of collision partners. Atoms,
which are most mobile and energetic, are strongly favored to participate in
collisions, and are more often ejected from the lattice, than the slow ones in
the laser parameter region selected for study. For blue-detuned lattices, we
study how optical shielding emerges as a natural part of the lattice and look
for ways to optimize the effect. The simulations are computationally very
demanding and would obviously benefit from the simplification schemes. We
present some steps to this direction by showing how it is possible to calculate
collision rates in near-resonant lattices in a fairly simple way.
