Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Strong enhancement of Penning ionization for asymmetric atom pairs in cold Rydberg gases: the Tom and Jerry effect. / Efimov, D.K.; Miculis, K.; Bezuglov, N.N.; Ekers, A.
In: Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Vol. 49, No. 12, 2016, p. 125302.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Strong enhancement of Penning ionization for asymmetric atom pairs in cold Rydberg gases: the Tom and Jerry effect.
AU - Efimov, D.K.
AU - Miculis, K.
AU - Bezuglov, N.N.
AU - Ekers, A.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - We consider Penning ionization of Rydberg atom pairs as an Auger-type process induced by the dipole–dipole interaction and employ semiclassical formulae for dipole transitions to calculate the autoionization width as a function of the principal quantum numbers, n d , n i , of both atoms. While for symmetric atom pairs with ${n}_{d}={n}_{i}={n}_{0}$ the well-known increase of the autoionization width with increasing n 0 is obtained, the result for asymmetric pairs is counterintuitive—for a fixed n i of the ionizing atom of the pair, the autoionization width strongly increases with decreasing n d of the de-excited atom. For H Rydberg atoms this increase reaches two orders of magnitude at the maximum of the n d dependence, and the same type of counterintuitive behavior is exhibited also by Na, Rb and Cs atoms. This is a purely quantum-mechanical effect, which points towards existence of optimal (we call them 'Tom' and 'Jerry' for 'big' and 'small') pairs of Rydberg atoms with respect to autoionization efficiency
AB - We consider Penning ionization of Rydberg atom pairs as an Auger-type process induced by the dipole–dipole interaction and employ semiclassical formulae for dipole transitions to calculate the autoionization width as a function of the principal quantum numbers, n d , n i , of both atoms. While for symmetric atom pairs with ${n}_{d}={n}_{i}={n}_{0}$ the well-known increase of the autoionization width with increasing n 0 is obtained, the result for asymmetric pairs is counterintuitive—for a fixed n i of the ionizing atom of the pair, the autoionization width strongly increases with decreasing n d of the de-excited atom. For H Rydberg atoms this increase reaches two orders of magnitude at the maximum of the n d dependence, and the same type of counterintuitive behavior is exhibited also by Na, Rb and Cs atoms. This is a purely quantum-mechanical effect, which points towards existence of optimal (we call them 'Tom' and 'Jerry' for 'big' and 'small') pairs of Rydberg atoms with respect to autoionization efficiency
KW - Rydberg atoms
KW - Penning ionization
KW - ultracold plasma
U2 - 10.1088/0953-4075/49/12/125302
DO - 10.1088/0953-4075/49/12/125302
M3 - Article
VL - 49
SP - 125302
JO - Journal of the European Optical Society Part B: Quantum Optics
JF - Journal of the European Optical Society Part B: Quantum Optics
SN - 0953-4075
IS - 12
ER -
ID: 7567840