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Physical Review A

Electron scattering from atoms in the presence of a laser field. II

Marvin H. Mittleman

Published Oct 1, 1976• 38 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In the first paper of this series a formal theory of atomic scattering of electrons in the presence of an intense electromagnetic field was given. Cross sections, near the forward direction, between atomic states (modified by the laser) were obtained. However, it was assumed that the atom could not emit spontaneous radiation. In this paper the effect of spontaneous radiation is included, and it is shown that in most cases the measured cross section will be a weighted average of the two different cross sections starting from the two different initial states which are those atomic states resonantly linked by the laser. The Born approximation for the scattering is obtained, and it is shown that for the simplest description of the spontaneous radiation field the effect of the laser on the cross sections is simply to multiply them by a factor which depends upon the laser detuning.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.14.1338

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Physical Review A•Nov 1, 1983•10 citations
In the first paper of this series a formal theory of atomic scattering of electrons in the presence of an intense electromagnetic field was given. Cross sections, near the forward direction, between atomic states (modified by the laser) were obtained. However, it was assumed that the atom could not emit spontaneous radiation. In this paper the effect of spontaneous radiation is included, and it is shown that in most cases the measured cross section will be a weighted average of the two different cross sections starting from the two different initial states which are those atomic states resonantly linked by the laser. The Born approximation for the scattering is obtained, and it is shown that for the simplest description of the spontaneous radiation field the effect of the laser on the cross sections is simply to multiply them by a factor which depends upon the laser detuning.
The development of the theory of the effect of a laser on electron-atom scattering is continued by the derivation of explicit relations between the observed electron-atom scattering cross sections in the presence of a laser and exact electron-atom scattering cross sections with no laser present. No approximation concerning the scattering interaction is made. The only approximations concerning the laser are that (1) the laser-atom interaction energy is small compared to atomic energies, (2) the Rabi frequency times the collision time is small, and (3) the laser intensity in appropriate units is small.
Process of photon scattering on atoms is considered at energy above the ionization threshold. Influence of the resonant structure in the continuum, induced by a laser field due to coupling with the level 41 S in helium, on the cross sections of elastic and inelastic scattering of a probe radiation on atom in the meta-stable state 21 S is theoretically investigated. In the rotating wave approximation approach dependences of resonant scattering cross sections on the probe and laser radiation characteristics are obtained. The frequency and polarization dependences of the scattering cross sections to the final states of atom 11 S, 21 S and 41 S are calculated.
We consider electron scattering by hydrogen atoms in a bichromatic linearly polarized laser field of frequencies ω and 3ω and we discuss the coherent control of the scattering process as a function of the relative phase φ between the two components of the radiation field. The electrons are assumed to have sufficiently high energies in order to permit the description of the scattering process in the first-order Born approximation. The scattered electrons, embedded in the bichromatic laser field of moderate power, as well as the laser dressing of the hydrogen atoms in their ground state are described by time-dependent perturbation theory. We discuss the angular dependence of the nonlinear differential scattering cross sections for the low values N = ±2 of absorbed or emitted laser photons as a function of the relative phase φ between the two radiation field components. We also compare our results with those obtained from the assumption of a static potential describing the target atom.
Abstract A theoretical and experimental study has been made of the intensity of forward scattered light in conditions of radio-frequency double resonance and level-crossing. The main conclusions are (i) that the magnetic resonance and level-crossing effects which are familiar in the laterally scattered light are to be found also in the forward scattered light, but (ii) that the resonance curves are Doppler-broadened, and the strength of the oscillatory field necessary to generate them is correspondingly increased, and (iii) that coherence narrowing is much more pronounced in forward than in lateral scattering. The differences derive from the coherence between the radiation from different atoms which is present in forward, but not in lateral scattering, and which is implicitly recognized in the classical theory of the propagation of light in polarizable media. The equations of electromagnetism form the basis of the present analysis. In the presence of the oscillatory magnetic field the polarization tensor is complex and time-dependent. The time dependence leads to the result that the number of eigenwaves necessary to describe propagated waves in the medium is four, as against the usual two. An arbitrary wave is resolved into a superposition of the four eigenwaves, all of which have different propagation constants. The analysis is very general, and is applicable to experiments with lasers. The components of the polarization tensor are derived by finding first the polarizability of individual atoms from a semi-classical theory of their interaction with light and magnetic fields. The macroscopic polarization, obtained by summing over individual atoms, is then given by folding the individual polarizabilities with the Doppler distribution of resonance frequencies. In the particular case studied in detail (the inter-combination resonance line, 2537 A, in mercury), the Doppler width is much greater than the radiation width, and the imaginary (absorptive) part of the polarizability is Gaussian. Expressions are derived in a ‘weak scattering’ approximation for the intensity of the forward scattered light. They are magnetic resonance functions which are found to be the Doppler-broadened equivalents of the familiar functions, based on Lorentzians, characteristic of scattering by a single atom. In the case of double resonance the forward scattered light is strongly modulated, as is the laterally scattered light. To investigate coherence narrowing, the zero-field level-crossing has been studied with the restriction of ‘weak scattering’ removed. The result is obtained that the width of levelcrossing curves is inversely proportional to the vapour density for magnetic fields such that the Zeeman splitting is small in relation to the Doppler width. This analytical result has been verified experimentally.
The theory of resonant reactions, in the projection-operator formulation of Feshbach, is generalized to account for the presence of an external electromagnetic field. The theory is used as the basis for the construction of low-frequency approximations for the transition amplitude. Results obtained here for scattering in a laser field confirm earlier versions of the low-frequency approximation when the resonances are isolated. However, if there are several closely spaced resonances additional terms must be included (their importance magnified by the appearance of near singularities) which account for the effect of radiative transitions between pairs of nearly degenerate resonant states. The weak-field limit of this result yields a low-frequency approximation for single-photon spontaneous bremsstrahlung which, through the inclusion of correction terms associated with closely spaced resonances, provides an improvement over the Feshbach-Yennie version derived some time ago. A separate treatment is required to deal with the limiting case of a static external field and this is worked out here in the context of a time-dependent formulation of the scattering problem. Linear and quadratic Stark splitting of the resonance positions, and resonance broadening due to the tunneling mechanism, are expected to play a significant role in the static limit and these effects are included in the approximation derived here for the transition amplitude.