Abstract
Accurate data on electric-dipole transition matrix elements (EDTMs) for bound-bound Rydberg-atom transitions have become increasingly important in science and technology. Here we compute radial EDTMs of rubidium in length, velocity, and acceleration forms for electric-dipole-allowed transitions between states with principal and angular-momentum quantum numbers and ranging from 15 to 100. Wave functions are computed based upon model potentials from [Phys. Rev. A 49, 982 (1994)]. Length-gauge EDTMs of strong low- Rydberg transitions, often employed in research and technology, are found to deviate from the fundamentally more accurate velocity-gauge form by approximately--independent and series-dependent shifts. The shift amount peaks at about for the Rb series, a particularly strong Rydberg-transition series in Rb. The shift corresponds to relative EDTM corrections of up to , which can be of concern in high-precision applications. We discuss the physical reasons for the observed gauge differences, explain the conditions for applicability of the velocity- and length-gauge forms for different transition series, and present a decision tree of how to choose EDTMs.
- Received 21 October 2021
- Accepted 23 December 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.105.012825
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