Physical Review A
Inelastic collisions between selectively excited rubidium 6D2 -state atoms and noble-gas atoms: Fine-structure-state mixing
Byron George Zollars, Hans A. Schuessler, Joel Wm. Parker, R. H. Hill
Abstract
Inelastic collisional processes in fine-structure-state mixing have been studied by selective stepwise excitation and observation of the resulting fluorescence during collisions of excited rubidium $6^{2}D_{\frac{5}{2}}$ state atoms with various noble-gas atoms. It is shown that for intermediately excited rubidium atoms the fine-structure-state mixing cross sections are generally increasing from helium to xexon. The cross sections for the process $\mathrm{Rb}(6^{2}D_{\frac{5}{2}})+A(n^{1}S_{0})\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\mathrm{Rb}(6^{2}D_{\frac{3}{2}})+A(n^{1}S_{0})+\ensuremath{\Delta}E$ have the values ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\mathrm{fs}}^{*}=2.4\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.9, 3.1\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.2, 2.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.0, 5.8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2.2, \mathrm{and} 9.3\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}5.6$ in units of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}14}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$, where $A$ denotes in sequence any one of the noble gas atoms He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe, respectively. Transfer cross sections for the transfer of excited Rb$6^{2}D$-state atoms out of the doublet were also determined and are about an order of magnitude smaller than the fine-structure-mixing cross sections.