Bulletin of the American Physical Society

Time evolution of Rydberg states as a function of the Rydberg-parent atom relative velocity

Enrique J. Galvez, John R. Lewis, F. DeZela

Published May 1, 1993• 0 citations

Abstract

Using state-resolved field ionization we have studied the time evolution of sodium Rydberg states, in a thermal atomic beams initially excited to 28s. The velocities of the detected Rydberg atoms were selected using the time-of-flight technique. With this selection we were able to study the time evolution of atoms with average velocities v{sub r} different from v{sub b}, the average velocity of the ground state atoms of the beam. We observe that for v{sub r}{approximately}v{sub b} the time evolution is dominated by blackbody radiation induced transitions to neighboring levels. However, as v{sub r}>>v{sub b} collisional transfers become important. For v{sub r}>>v{sub b} the time evolution is dominated by collisional transfer. The data shows evidence of both n{sup -} and l{sup -} changing collisions. We will compare a modeled theory with the data.

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