Radiative decay of self-ionization states of silver atoms

Alexander B Voitkiv

G.G. Bogachev

Vitalii D Ovsiannikov, Igor L. Glukhov

Details of interaction between the blackbody radiation and neutral lithium atoms were studied in the temperature ranges T = 100-2000 K. The rates of thermally induced decays, excitations and ionization were calculated for S-, P- and D-series of Rydberg states in the Fues' model potential approach. The quantitative regularities for the states of the maximal rates of blackbody-radiation-induced processes were determined. Approximation formulas were proposed for analytical representation of the depopulation rates.

M. Soltanolkotabi, R. Gupta

R. E. Sheldon, Tamara J. Babij, Brendan Devlin-Hill +2 more

We report a measurement of the annihilation decay rate of positronium (Ps) atoms, . Ground state atoms optically excited to radiatively metastable states were quenched via Stark mixing by the application of a time-delayed electric field. Rapid radiative decay of the Stark mixed states to the ground state, followed by self-annihilation, was observed via the annihilation radiation time spectrum, and used to determine the number of excited state atoms remaining at different times, and hence the decay rate. We obtain , in broad agreement with the Zeeman-shifted theoretical value of .

Olga V. Tikhonova, A. M. Popov

The ionization of a model atom in a strong single-mode non-classical electromagnetic field is studied beyond the perturbation approach using the model of ``one discrete level + continuum'' for the atom. Explicit analytical expressions for the time-dependent probability of atomic ionization are obtained for different initial states of radiative field: Fock state, coherent wave packet, squeezed vacuum state. The results are compared to the ionization decay of discrete atomic level in a classical light field, and are analyzed for different mean number of radiative photons. The time-dependent distribution of the quantized field over photon number states is examined.