Rydberg-Stark states in oscillating electric fields

Abstract

Experimental and theoretical studies of the effects of weak radio-frequency electric fields on Rydberg-Stark states with electric dipole moments as large as 10000 D are reported. High-resolution laser spectroscopic studies of Rydberg states with principal quantum number $n=52$ and $53$ were performed in pulsed supersonic beams of metastable helium with the excited atoms detected by pulsed electric field ionisation. Experiments were carried out in the presence of sinusoidally oscillating electric fields with frequencies of 20~MHz, amplitudes of up to 120~mV/cm, and dc offsets of up to 4.4~V/cm. In weak fields the experimentally recorded spectra are in excellent agreement with the results of calculations carried out using Floquet methods to account for electric dipole couplings in the oscillating fields. This highlights the validity of these techniques for the accurate calculation of the Stark energy level structure in such fields, and the limitations of the calculations in stronger fields where $n-$mixing and higher-order contributions become important.

19 pages, 11 figures in Molecular Physics, (2015)

References in corpus (4)

• Controlling the interactions of a few cold Rb Rydberg atoms by radiofrequency-assisted Förster resonances
• Measurement and numerical calculation of Rubidium Rydberg Stark spectra
• Transmission-line decelerators for atoms in high Rydberg states
• Probing interactions between Rydberg atoms with large electric dipole moments in amplitude modulated electric fields

Cited by in corpus (10)

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• Preparation of circular Rydberg states in helium with $n\ge 70$ using a modified version of the crossed-fields method
• Population trapping in a pair of periodically driven Rydberg atoms
• Landau-Zener transitions and Adiabatic impulse approximation in an array of two Rydberg atoms with time-dependent detuning
• Experimental demonstration of a Rydberg-atom beam splitter
• Preparation of circular Rydberg states in helium using the crossed fields method
• Matter-wave interferometry with atoms in high Rydberg states
• Mean-field energy-level shifts and dielectric properties of strongly polarized Rydberg gases