R. van Leeuwen, M.L. Bajema, and R.R. Jones
Abstract:We have studied the propagation of an autoionizing radial Rydberg wavepacket in barium. The wavepacket is formed when a short laser pulse directly excites two quasi-bound low-n 5d_{5/2}nd Rydberg states that are embedded in the continuum above the first ionization threshold. This two-state autoionizing radial wavepacket interacts strongly with high-n' Rydberg states associated with the adjacent 5d_{3/2}n'd series. Time-dependent electron-electron scattering leads to the fromation of three distinct bound radial wavepackets that oscillate with very different Kepler periods and periodically decay through autoionization. Experimentally we have probed the temporal oscillations between the different wavepackets with a second, time-delayed, laser pulse using bound-state interferometry. Theoretically, we use three-channel quantum defect theory to construct and propagate the multiconfigurational wavepacket to view its spatial distribution as a function of time.
Status: Published, Phys. Rev. A 61, 022716 (2000). Download this Paper