Quantal and classical radiative cascade in Rydberg plasmas

Journal Article · Mon Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2003 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.68.030502· OSTI ID:20640128

Flannery, M R ^[1]; Vrinceanu, D ^[2]

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1. School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 (United States)
2. ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (United States)

Atoms in high-(n,l) states formed in cold Rydberg plasmas decay to the ground state in a succession of radiative transitions populating intermediate excited states. A classical treatment presents radiative cascade in a physically transparent way and reveals the 'trajectory' in nl space obeyed by the cascade, scaling rules, and other aspects hidden within the quantal approach. Quantal-classical correspondence in radiative decay is directly demonstrated. Classical transition probabilities are also presented and are in excellent agreement with quantal transition probabilities, even for moderate quantum numbers.

• OSTI ID: 20640128
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 68; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ATOMS
GROUND STATES
PLASMA
PROBABILITY
QUANTUM NUMBERS
RADIATIVE DECAY
RYDBERG STATES
SPACE