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 -