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Physical Review Letters

Rydberg Atoms in "Circular" States

Randall G. Hulet, Daniel Kleppner

Published Oct 17, 1983• 281 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The population of a beam of lithium atoms has been transferred from a low angular momentum Rydberg state to a state with $|m|=n\ensuremath{-}1$, with nearly 100% efficiency. Selective field ionization is employed to detect the high $|m|$ state. Transfer occurs by a series of adiabatic rapid passages; it can also occur by a single multiphoton process.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.51.1430

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The population of a beam of lithium atoms has been transferred from a low angular momentum Rydberg state to a state with ∣m∣=n\ensuremath−1|m|=n\ensuremath{-}1∣m∣=n\ensuremath−1, with nearly 100% efficiency. Selective field ionization is employed to detect the high ∣m∣|m|∣m∣ state. Transfer occurs by a series of adiabatic rapid passages; it can also occur by a single multiphoton process.
Coherent population transfer in an atom using a sequence of adiabatic rapid passages through single-photon resonances is well-known, but it requires that the frequency sweep match the changing frequencies of the atomic transitions. The same population transfer can be effected via a single multiphoton adiabatic rapid passage, which requires only a small frequency sweep, if it is possible to select the desired multiphoton transition from the many possible transitions. Here we report the observation of population transfer between Rydberg states by high order multiphoton adiabatic rapid passage.
The population of atoms in Rydberg states is efficiently transferred with a change in principal quantum number nnn of up to ten via multiphoton adiabatic rapid passage through a single multiphoton resonance using a frequency-chirped microwave pulse. A quantum-mechanical picture of multiphoton adiabatic rapid passage in a one-dimensional atom using a Floquet approach provides a good description of most, but not all, of the observed phenomena.
We discuss three proposed schemes of initializing circular-state Rydberg atoms via optical couplings provided by the ponderomotive effect in contrast to the current circularization methods that utilize electric-dipole interactions. In our first proposed method, a radial optical trap consisting of two Laguerre-Gaussian beams of opposite winding numbers transfers orbital angular momentum to the Rydberg atom, providing a first-order coherent coupling between an F state and a circular state. Additionally, we propose a one-dimensional ponderomotive optical lattice modulated at rf frequencies, providing quadrupolelike couplings in the hydrogenic manifold for rapid adiabatic passage through a series of intermediate Rydberg states into the circular state. For the third proposed scheme, a two-dimensional ponderomotive optical lattice with a time-orbiting trap center induces effectively the same coupling as a ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{+}$- or ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$-polarized rf field of tunable purity for all-optical rapid adiabatic passage into the circular state.