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Physical Review A

Collisional energy transfer between Rydberg and ground-state atoms

Satoru S. Kano, Y. Taira, Hiroshi Takuma, Kunio Nishizawa, K. Sakurai

Published Sep 1, 1985• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The absolute cross section for the energy transfer between the nP Rydberg atom (n=35--60) and the ground-state (5S) atom of rubidium is measured to be 4.8\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{2}$ A${\r{}}^{2}$ for thermal collisions at 420 K. This value of the cross section is in agreement with the calculated value for resonant charge transfer at the relevant collision energy. It is concluded that the energy transfer process is essentially charge transfer between the Rydberg ion core and the ground-state atom, where the Rydberg electron stays as a spectator.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.32.1914

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The absolute cross section for the energy transfer between the nP Rydberg atom (n=35--60) and the ground-state (5S) atom of rubidium is measured to be 4.8\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}102{10}^{2}102 A˚2{\r{}}^{2}˚2 for thermal collisions at 420 K. This value of the cross section is in agreement with the calculated value for resonant charge transfer at the relevant collision energy. It is concluded that the energy transfer process is essentially charge transfer between the Rydberg ion core and the ground-state atom, where the Rydberg electron stays as a spectator.
The authors have measured the cross sections for the collisional quenching of highly excited (34<or=n<or=43) S rubidium atoms by ground-state rubidium atoms. The comparison between their data and the values calculated using a theoretical approach that only takes into account the valence electron-ground-state rubidium interaction provides the first experimental estimation of the cross section for the elastic scattering of ultra-low-energy electrons (E approximately=0.01 eV) by rubidium atoms. Their results for the quenching are connected to the available measurements of the self-broadening of the rubidium (5S-nS) lines by using a recent theoretical model: for n approximately 40 the self-broadcasting is essentially due to inelastic collisions. An upper limit is given for the cross section for the isotopic transfer between 85 Rb(nS) and 87 Rb(nS) states due to collisions with ground-state rubidium atoms.
Charge transfer collisions between slow ions and Rydberg atoms have been studied for ion charges q=1−−4q\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}1--4q=1−−4, using resonant laser excitation to detect specific energy states of the collision products. The data collected show a clear resonance in the capture cross section to a particular energy state as the binding energy of the Rydberg target is varied. The resonance position differs significantly from the predictions of the classical overbarrier model, and its width becomes very small (0.025 eV) at the lowest velocities studied.
Resonant energy transfer collisions, those in which one atom or molecule transfers only internal energy, as oppposed to translational energy, to its collision partner require a precise match of the energy intervals in the two collision partners. Because of this energy specificity, resonant collisional energy transfer plays an important role in many laser applications, the He–Ne and CO 2 lasers being perhaps the best known examples. It is interesting to imagine an experiment in which we can tune the energy of the excited state of atom B through the energy of the excited state of atom A, as shown in Fig. 14.1. At resonance we would expect the cross section for collisionally transferring the energy from an excited A atom to a ground state B atom to increase sharply as shown in Fig. 14.1. In general, atomic and molecular energy levels are fixed, and the situation of Fig. 14.1 is impossible to realize. Nonetheless systematic studies of resonant energy transfer have been carried out by altering the collision partner, showing the importance of resonance in collisional energy transfer. The use of atomic Rydberg states, which have series of closely spaced levels, presents a natural opportunity for the study of resonant collisional energy transfer. One of the earliest experiments was the observation of resonant rotational to electronic energy transfer from NH 3 to Xe Rydberg atoms by Smith et al .
The impulse approximation for the Rydberg atom-atom collisions is analyzed on the basis of the Faddeev equations. A modified expression is derived for the cross sections, including the interference between the Rydberg-electron--perturber scattering and the ion-core--perturber scattering. This expression is used for the calculations of the collisional quenching and elastic scattering in Rb(nS)-Rb and Rb(nP)-Rb collisions. We use the electron-Rb scattering phase shifts obtained from ab initio close-coupling calculations and their extrapolation, applying the modified effective-range theory. Our results show that the impulse approximation agrees with the experimental data for the quenching cross sections at n>20 but underestimates the quenching cross sections at lower n. The position of the maximum of the cross section is in good agreement with experimental data. We also obtain reasonable results for the elastic cross section at n>20, but for the lower n the results are too large. The interference effect plays a minor role in the process, which means that simultaneous electron-perturber and ion-perturber interaction is unlikely.
Resonant collisional energy transfer between atoms with small relative velocity is shown to have such long collision times, \ensuremath{\sim}0.17 \ensuremath{\mu}s, or equivalently such narrow linewidths, 6 MHz, that it may be used to make spectroscopic measurements. Specifically, we report the use of the sharply resonant collisional energy transfer ns+(n-2)d\ensuremath{\rightarrow}np +(n-1)p, between velocity-selected K atoms to determine an improved value, 1.711?5(5), and the K np-state quantum defect.