Amplitude modulation of atomic wave functions. Final report
The major theoretical advance has been to show that one can modulate Rydberg wave functions using either of two methods: (1) the amplitude modulation technique which depends on autoionization to deplete part of the wave function, or (2) a phase modulation method, which uses a change in the core potential to create a localized phase shift in the wave function. Essentially, these two methods can both be seen as using the core potential to change the Rydberg wave function, using the imaginary part of the potential to do amplitude modulation, or using the real part of the potential to do phase modulation. This work will be published as the authors acquire experimental results which show the differences between the two methods. One of the results of this theoretical study is that the initial proposal to study Barium 6snd states had a significant flaw. Neither the autoionization time, nor the quantum defect shifts are very large in these cases. This means that the modulation is relatively small. This shows itself primarily in the difficulty of seeing significant population redistribution into different 6snd states. The authors intend to correct this in the next funding cycle either: (a) by using the more quickly decaying Ba 6pnf states to modulate 6snd states, or (b) by using Sr 5 snd states, as outlined in this report. Their first, low power experiments are complete. These experiments have used two pulses to do a temporal version of the Ramsey separated oscillatory fields excitation. The two pulses are generated by passing the single pulse through a Michelson-Morley interferometer, which is computer controlled to sweep one arm through 2.5 {micro}m in steps of 10 nm. The second pulse`s excitation interferes with that of the first pulse, and so the total excitation has a sinusoidal variation (with a time period equal to the optical period) on top of a constant background. The amplitude of the total variation should decay at half of the rate decay rate of the autoionizing state, so this produces a time-resolved measurement of the very rapid autoionization decay. Although this does not yet show that the atom stores modulations in the bound coherent state, it does demonstrate that the atom can be excited to an autoionizing state with high efficiency, and then brought back to a bound state at a later time. The second set of experiments takes the previous work to the strong coupling regime.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG03-93ER14360
- OSTI ID:
- 666148
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/ER/14360-T1; ON: DE99000063; TRN: 99:000912
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: [1998]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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