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Physical Review A

Effect of the spin-orbit interaction in photoionization Stark spectra of ml=1 excited rubidium atoms

J. M. Lecomte, Sylvain Liberman, Eliane Luc-Koenig, Jacques Pinard, A. Taleb

Published Apr 1, 1984• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Experimental results on the photoionization spectra of excited rubidium atoms in a well-defined ${m}_{l}=1$ state in the presence of an electric field are reported. Spectra corresponding to a definite polarization of the ionizing light exhibit characteristic resonances which are ascribed either to the non-Coulombic part of the central potential or to the spin-orbit interaction. The different line profiles are interpreted as being due to interferences between discrete states and continua, the observed structures depending directly on the density of oscillator strengths and not simply on the density of continuum states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.29.1929

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We report on the observation and numerical calculation of ionization spectra of highly Stark-shifted Rydberg states of rubidium beyond the classical ionization threshold. In the numerical calculations, a complex absorbing potential (CAP) allows us to predict the energy levels and ionization rates of Rydberg states in this regime. Our approach of adjusting the CAP to the external electric field reduces the number of free parameters from one per resonance to a single one. Furthermore, we have measured the ionization spectra of magneto-optically trapped rubidium atoms which are excited to principal quantum numbers of 43 and 70 at various electric fields. The emerging ions are detected using an ion optics. We find good agreement between the numerically and experimentally obtained spectra.
We have studied experimentally and theoretically two-step photoionization through the 3P state of sodium in an electric field of up to 3.90 kV/cm. The apparatus uses an atomic beam crossed by two pulsed laser beams, one at 589 nm for the first step, and the other swept through the zero field threshold Eo near 409 nm for the ionization. We observe broad undulations in the photocurrent above Eo that narrow with decreasing energy and eventually sharpen into well-defined but asymmetric transitions to Stark-shifted Rydberg states. We calculate the oscillator strength density for the appropriate transitions using modified hydrogenic wave functions and find excellent agreement for the position and relative strength of all the spectral features. We model the asymmetries as Fano-type interferences between quasi-discrete and continuum ionization channels. Using appropriate core potentials, and taking into account core-induced coupling of both discrete-to-continuum and continuum-to-continuum states, we obtain estimates of Fano's q and Ɖ that agree reasonably well with our measurements.