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Physical Review Letters

Nondispersive Electronic Wave Packets in Multiphoton Processes

Andreas Buchleitner, Dominique Delande

Published Aug 21, 1995• 70 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We describe how the nonlinear coupling between the unperturbed Coulomb motion of a Rydberg electron and a linearly polarized microwave field may create an electronic wave packet of almost ``eternal'' lifetime, evolving according to the classical equations of motion without dispersion. This new quantum object owes its existence to the underlying mixed regular chaotic structure of classical phase space and is experimentally accessible.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.75.1487

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We describe how the nonlinear coupling between the unperturbed Coulomb motion of a Rydberg electron and a linearly polarized microwave field may create an electronic wave packet of almost ``eternal'' lifetime, evolving according to the classical equations of motion without dispersion. This new quantum object owes its existence to the underlying mixed regular chaotic structure of classical phase space and is experimentally accessible.
It is possible to make nondispersing Bohr wave packets in a straightforward way starting from Li Rydberg atoms in an np eigenstate[2]. These atoms are first exposed to a linearly polarized microwave field at the orbital frequency, 17.6GHz at n = 72. The linearly polarized field phase locks the electron wave packet to the microwave phase, making a nondispersing wave packet in which the electron oscillates in a highly eccentric, approximately linear orbit. We detect the phase locked motion of the electron with a 1/2ps half-cycle pulse synchronized with the microwave field. Slowly changing the microwave polarization from linear to circular polarization creates a nondispersing Bohr wave packet that survives for thousands of orbits.
Long-lived, nondispersing circular, or Bohr, wave packets are produced starting from Li Rydberg atoms by exposing them first to a linearly polarized microwave field at the orbital frequency, 17.6 GHz at principal quantum number n=72, which locks the electron's motion into an approximately linear orbit in which the electron oscillates in phase with the microwave field. The microwave polarization is changed to circular polarization slowly compared to the orbital frequency, and the electron's motion follows, resulting in a nondispersing Bohr wave packet.
We find strongly localized wave packets tracing without dispersion the classical dynamics of a Rydberg electron in a circularly polarized microwave field using a full 3D quantum calculation. These wave packets are single eigenstates of the atom dressed by the microwave field and are very stable against ionization. Their widths fluctuate with microwave amplitude and/or frequency realizing an optical analog of the conductance fluctuations in mesoscopic systems. Similar behavior is observed for linear microwave polarization. We show that such behavior is expected when classical nonlinear resonances are important in an atomic system.