Very-high-n Stark wave packets generated by an electric-field step
- Department of Physics and the Rice Quantum Institute, Rice University, 6100 South Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005-1892 (United States)
- Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6373 (United States)
Wave packets comprising a coherent superposition of n{approx_equal}390 Stark states have been created in potassium by rapid application of a dc field. Their properties are examined using a half-cycle probe pulse that is applied following a variable time delay and that ionizes a fraction of the excited atoms. The survival probability exhibits pronounced oscillations (quantum beats) that are associated with the time evolution of the wave packet. Interestingly, even in the present regime of complete overlap of different Stark manifolds, a single dominant beat frequency is observed, and this is explained quantum mechanically in terms of energy-level statistics. Similar behavior is predicted by classical trajectory Monte Carlo simulations that reproduce well the experimental observations demonstrating classical-quantum correspondence in high-n systems. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-96OR22464
- OSTI ID:
- 450327
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review A, Journal Name: Physical Review A Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 55; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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