Application of the Faddeev-Watson expansion to thermal collisions of Rydberg atoms with neutral particles

Journal Article · Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 EST 1983 · Phys. Rev. A; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.27.1831· OSTI ID:6083582

de Prunele, E

The Faddeev-Watson expansion (FWE) for the T operator is applied to the study of thermal collisions between Rydberg atom and neutral atom. These collisions are considered as a three-body problem (the perturber, the Rydberg electron, and its parent core) and it is assumed, as already done in most theoretical works dealing with Rydberg-atom--atom collisions, that the core-perturber interaction can be neglected. Then the evaluation of the FWE first- and second-order terms is made tractable by using an appropriate separable potential for the Rydberg-electron--perturber interaction. The evaluation of the second-order term allows us to estimate the importance of taking into account explicitly the Rydberg-electron--core interaction in the expression of the (three-body) T operator for the thermal collisions considered. Detailed calculations for the process Rb(n, l = 0)+He ..-->..Rb(n',l')+He are presented and discussed. The FWE second-order term has been evaluated for the first time by taking the (two-body) t operator associated with the Rydberg atom (valence electron plus parent core) as the Coulomb potential. The contribution of the FWE second-order term to the scattering amplitude decreases as n increases and is found especially significant when both the momentum transfers involved in the collision are large and the values of l and l' are small.

• Research Organization: Service de Physique des Atomes et des Surfaces, Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
• OSTI ID: 6083582
• Journal Information: Phys. Rev. A; (United States), Vol. 27:4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
HELIUM
ATOM-ATOM COLLISIONS
RUBIDIUM
RYDBERG STATES
ELECTRONS
EXCHANGE INTERACTIONS
EXCITATION
FADDEEV EQUATIONS
SCATTERING AMPLITUDES
THREE-BODY PROBLEM
ALKALI METALS
AMPLITUDES
ATOM COLLISIONS
COLLISIONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ELEMENTS
ENERGY LEVELS
ENERGY-LEVEL TRANSITIONS
EQUATIONS
EXCITED STATES
FERMIONS
FLUIDS
GASES
INTERACTIONS
LEPTONS
MANY-BODY PROBLEM
METALS
NONMETALS
RARE GASES
640304* - Atomic
Molecular & Chemical Physics- Collision Phenomena