On excitation of light by collisions

A. L. Belov, В. П. Крайнов

S. Zielińska-Kaniasty

The velocity changing collisions (vcc) play an important role in the description of velocity redistribution of particles caused by nearly resonant interaction with the laser light and collisions (1). Collision relaxation rates are conveniently described by collision kernels which, in turn, depend on interatomic potential and scattering amplitudes and is proportional to the collision cross section. The population kernel gives the probability density per unit time that an active particle in state 1 i> undergoes collisions with perturbers (usually a noble gas atom or impurity), which changes the active particle velocity from v′ to v. Due to the fact that perturber-active particle interaction is state dependent the collisions cause different changes in the ground and excited states of active particle. Although the shape of the populations distributions resembles those from well-known Bennett hole theory, the distribution of the total population has two peaks and obviously is asymmetrical (2). Vcc together with velocity selective laser excitation lead to the asymmetry of the ground and excited state population. The flux of excited particles has properties which are different from that of ground state because of interaction collision potentials for both states. The intensity of the laser light strongly influences the velocity distributions of the ground and excited state populations.

A. Ll. Hughes, G. E. M. Jauncey

Mark I. Stockman, Lakshmi N. Pandey, Thomas F. George

Abstract : The effect of light-induced drift (LID) in gases, predicted by Gel'mukhanov and Shalagin and observed later, is manifested in mechanical drift of the absorbing atoms (molecules) in response to optical excitation. The effect of LID takes place if the atom interaction with light is velocity-dependent (due to the Doppler effect), the spectrum of the exciting radiation is asymmetric with respect to the the absorption line, and the absorbing molecules experience collisions with a buffer gas, with the collision rate dependent upon their internal state. The idea of LID is the following. Suppose for the sake of definiteness that the collision frequency of the absorbing molecules with the buffer is greater in the excited state and that the exciting light is red-shifted with respect to the absorption contour. Then due to the Doppler shift, the radiation interacts mainly with the counter-moving molecules, which undergo transitions into an excited state, in which their friction upon the buffer component is increased. Due to this increase, the counter-flying molecules are slowed down, while the molecules moving in the direction of light are not affected. The net effect is a drift of the absorbing component in the direction of light. The drift alternates its direction with the change of signs of either the detaining or the difference in the collision frequencies.

A. K. Das

A. Kopystyńska

A survey of experiments dealing with collisions between two Na(3P)-laser excited atoms is presented.