On the transfer of coherence in atomic collisions

Ashat M. Basharov

B. Macke, P. Glorieux, François Rohart

George William Series

It is pointed out that a recent observation by Gough on the polarization of sensitized fluorescence constitutes an experimental demonstration of the transfer of coherence from mercury to cadmium atoms in collisions of the second kind. The implications of this are discussed.

H. J. Beyer, Karl Blum, R. Hippler

B. Niewitecka, L. Krause

Coherence transfer accompanying 32P1/2 → 32P3/2 excitation transfer in sodium, induced in collisions with noble gas atoms, has been investigated using methods of sensitized fluorescence. Oriented 32P1/2 sodium atoms were produced by irradiating a mixture of sodium vapor and a noble gas with D1σ+ resonance radiation, and their subsequent collisions with the buffer gas atoms resulted in the simultaneous transfer of coherence and excitation from the 2P1/2 state to the 2P3/2 state. Measurements of the ratio of circular polarizations of the D2 sensitized fluorescence and D1 resonance fluorescence resulted in the following cross sections for coherence transfer. Na–He : 7.1 ± 0.7 Å2; Na–Ne : 6.2 ± 0.6 Å2; Na–Ar : 12.0 ± 1.2 Å2; Na–Kr : 6.8 ± 0.7 Å2; Na–Xe : 6.9 ± 0.7 Å2.