Limitations of the strong field approximation in ionization of the hydrogen atom by ultrashort pulses

We present a theoretical study of the ionization of hydrogen atoms as a result of the interaction with an ultrashort external electric field. Doubly-differential momentum distributions and angular momentum distributions of ejected electrons calculated in the framework of the Coulomb-Volkov and strong field approximations, as well as classical calculations are compared with the exact solution of the time dependent Schr ödinger equation. We show that in the impulsive limit, the Coulomb-Volkov distorted wave theory reproduces the exact solution. The validity of the strong field approximation is probed both classically and quantum mechanically. We found that classical mechanics describes the proper quantum momentum distributions of the ejected electrons right after a sudden momentum transfer, however pronounced the differences at latter stages that arise during the subsequent electron-nucleus interaction. Although the classical calculations reproduce the quantum momentum distributions, it fails to describe properly the angular momentum distributions, even in the limit of strong fields. The origin of this failure can be attributed to the difference between quantum and classical initial spatial distributions.     

Electron angular distributions in double photoionization: Use of effective Sommerfeld parameters

We present calculations of the fivefold differential cross-section (FDCS) for double photoionization of helium at excess energies of 6 and 20 eV above threshold. Our results are obtained using for the final double-continuum state a product of three Coulomb wave functions, with the Sommerfeld parameters modified to describe the strength of interaction of any two particles affected by the third particle. Our calculations are compared with recent absolute measurements by D?rner et al. (Phys. Rev. A 57, 1074 (1998)), both in coplanar and non-coplanar geometries. Very good agreement is obtained for the shape of the angular distributions, and differences in the absolute magnitude exist in comparison with the standard choice of Sommerfeld parameters. Received: 17 July 1998 / Received in final form and Accepted: 23 October 1998     

One and two-photon detachment cross-sections of Ps-

We present detailed calculations for one- and two-photon above-threshold detachment (ATD) cross-sections of the negative positronium ion Ps ^- ( e ⁺ e ^- e ^- ), below the threshold of Ps(n = 2), using a configuration interaction (CI) method on a B splines basis. Both the one- and two-photon detachment cross-sections have a form similar to the corresponding spectra of the H^- ion, scaled accordingly. The peak value of the one-photon cross-section agrees very well with the calculations by Bathia and Drachman [1], while it differs from those by Igarashi et al. [2], which give a value of 15% lower. Two-photon detachment cross-sections are also reported. Received 24 January 2002 / Received in final form 9 April 2002 Published online 19 July 2002     

Bose-Einstein condensates with vortices in rotating traps

We investigate minimal energy solutions with vortices for an interacting Bose-Einstein condensate in a rotating trap. The atoms are strongly confined along the axis of rotation z, leading to an effective 2D situation in the x-y plane. We first use a simple numerical algorithm converging to local minima of energy. Inspired by the numerical results we present a variational ansatz in the regime where the interaction energy per particle is stronger than the quantum of vibration in the harmonic trap in the x-y plane, the so-called Thomas-Fermi regime. This ansatz allows an easy calculation of the energy of the vortices as function of the rotation frequency of the trap; it gives a physical understanding of the stabilisation of vortices by rotation of the trap and of the spatial arrangement of vortex cores. We also present analytical results concerning the possibility of detecting vortices by a time-of-flight measurement or by interference effects. In the final section we give numerical results for a 3D configuration. Received 16 December 1998 and Received in final form 18 March 1999     

Sisyphus cooling of rubidium atoms on the line: The role of the neighbouring transitions

We study one-dimensional Sisyphus cooling on the transition of ⁸⁷ Rb atoms in the electric field created by two counter-propagating linearly polarized laser beams with an angle of between the polarization directions. The neighbouring F '=0 and F '=2 excited states are found to play an important role in the cooling mechanism, e.g., by inhibiting a significant population of the velocity-selective dark state. Our experimental data, such as temperatures and probe absorption coefficients, agree well with the results of quantum Monte-Carlo wavefunction simulations. Received 26 November 1998 and Received in final form 20 April 1999     

Inversion analysis of K 2 coupled electronic states with the Fourier grid method

We present a new determination of the potential curves and interactions of the coupled electronic states A ¹ Σ ⁺ _u and b ³ Π _u of the potassium dimer, based on new laser spectroscopy measurements within a molecular beam, combined with data available in the literature. We used a new global deperturbation approach, involving the Fourier Grid Hamiltonian method for energy level calculation. A standard deviation of 1.2 is obtained corresponding to a variance of 7.5×10 ^-3 cm^-1, representing a significant improvement compared to the standard deviation of 4 yielded by the traditional local deperturbation approach. Received 12 June 2001 and Received in final form 3 September 2001     

Electron multiplicity in slow collisions of Ar ions with C

Electron capture by Ar⁸⁺ in collisions with C₆₀ fullerene has been investigated using coincident measurements of the number n of ejected electrons, the mass and charge of multicharged Cr+ ₆₀ recoil ions and their fragments Ci+ m and the final charge state of outgoing projectiles Ar(8-s)+ (). The number of captured electrons r is the sum of the numbers of stabilized and emitted electrons: r = n + s. The ratio n / s decreases by a factor three with s increasing from 1 to 7 showing that the multiply excited states populated by capture of a large number of electrons are rather stable against auto-ionisation. Each kinetic energy spectrum of Ar⁺ and Ar²⁺ projectiles is composed of two peaks which we attribute to collisions “inside” and “outside” the C₆₀ cage. The measured energy shift of the projectile keV is consistent with the corresponding energy loss keV in a carbon foil with an equivalent thickness. Inside collisions are characterized by a strong dissociation of recoil ions into light monocharged fragments and by a high multiplicity of ejected electrons. Received: 25 March 1998 / Received in final form and Accepted: 9 June 1998     

Ionization of barium through a coherent excitation of two bound intermediate states

We have investigated theoretically the asymmetrical photoionization yields into the 6s _1/2, 5d _3/2 and 5d _5/2 continuum channels of atomic barium observed by Wang, Chen and Elliott [Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 2416 (1996)] in the study of coherent control through two-color resonant interfering paths. The atomic parameters obtained from a theoretical approach based on a combination of jj-coupled eigenchannel R-matrix and Multichannel Quantum Defect Theory are used to analyze the photoionization spectra from the and 6s7p states with polarized light beams. The studied energy range includes the 6p7p autoionizing resonances. The dynamics of the two-color photoionization is governed by the coherent excitation of the 6s6p and intermediate states. This excitation is described as an adiabatic process in the rotating wave approximation. The influence of the radiative decay, spatial distribution of the intensities of the laser beams and hyperfine interaction is discussed. Received 28 September 1999     

Anisotropic velocity distributions in 3D dissipative optical lattices

We present a direct measurement of velocity distributions in two dimensions by using an absorption imaging technique in a 3D near resonant optical lattice. The results show a clear difference in the velocity distributions for the different directions. The experimental results are compared with a numerical 3D semi-classical Monte-Carlo simulation. The numerical simulations are in good qualitative agreement with the experimental results. Received 3 September 2002 / Received in final form 25 October 2002 Published online 11 February 2003     

Spectrum of two quasiequal-energy electrons ejected by a high-energy photon

We present numerical results for the photoelectron spectrum in double ionization by keV photons in the quasiequal-energy sharing region. In this region of the spectrum, the relevant ionizing mechanism is due to a mutual sharing of the photon momentum by both electrons, with small momentum transferred to the atomic nucleus. Calculations were performed for photon energies of 25 and 50 keV, where retardation effects are fundamental, while final-state correlations are of minor importance. The spectra present a two-peak structure, with maxima located at the photoelectron energies , with the photon energy in atomic units. We discuss the general features of the spectrum in terms of the picture of the photoionization of two free electrons, and we propose a way of detecting the contribution by experiments. Received 24 January 2000     

Flux enhancement model for cold cesium fine-structure changing collisions

The measurements of fine-structure changing collisions in a cesium magneto-optical trap, reported in a previous work [A. Fioretti et al., Phys. Rev. A 55, R3999 (1997)], are reanalyzed within a model based on the flux enhancement effect, which takes place in cold atomic collisions. In the present analysis, we consider the cooperative effect of the long-range and the shorter-range excitation by the strong trap laser. We evidence also the important role of the hyperfine structure of the Cs₂ molecular levels asymptotically connected to the ground-state and excited-state dissociation limits. Received 22 July 1999 and Received in final form 4 May 2000     

用Coulomb-Volkov方法研究强激光场中H原子的电离

利用Coulomb-Volkov方法研究了H原子在不同波长的线性极化强激光场中电离的能量谱和动量谱,并与强场近似和直接数值求解含时Schr(o|¨)dinger方程的结果进行比较,结果发现:随着激光频率的增加,由Coulomb-Volkov方法得到的结果与数值求解含时Schr(o|¨)dinger方程的结果符合得很好.     

An atom faucet

We present a simple and efficient source of slow atoms. From a background vapour loaded magneto-optical trap (MOT), a thin laser beam extracts a continuous jet of cold rubidium atoms. The jet that is typical to leaking MOT systems is created without any optical parts placed inside the vacuum chamber. We also present a simple three dimensional numerical simulation of the atomic motion in the presence of these multiple saturating laser fields combined with the inhomogeneous magnetic field of the MOT. At a pressure of P _Rb87 = 10^-8 mbar and with a moderate laser power of 10 mW per beam, we generate a flux Φ = 1.3×10⁸ atoms/s with a mean velocity of 14 m/s and a divergence of 10 mrad. Received 13 January 2001     

Photoionization cross-sections of the first excited states of sodium and lithium in a magneto-optical trap

A two element magneto-optical trap (MOT) for Na and ⁷Li or ⁶Li is used to cool and trap each of them separately. A fraction of the cold atoms is maintained in the first ²P_3/2 excited state by the cooling laser. These excited state atoms are ionized by laser light in the near-UV region, giving rise to a smaller number of trapped atoms and to different loading parameters. Photoionization cross-sections were derived out of these data. They are in reasonable agreement with data previously obtained using thermal samples and with theoretical predictions. Received 21 March 2001 and Received in final form 3 August 2001     

Spin-polarized Dirac-Slater calculations on the energies of hollow argon atom

In this work, the multiplet splitting in terms of a spin-dependent model is analyzed. The spin-polarized and unpolarized single configuration Dirac-Fock-Slater wavefunctions have been used in the evaluation of the total energies of highly ionized argon with different L shell population The transition energies of hollow argon atom with initial configurations 1s ⁰ _1/22s ^m _1/22p ⁿ _1/22p ^l _3/2 with m = 0 to 2 and n + l varying from 6 to 1 are reported in this work. The calculations have been carried out by taking into account a relativistic exchange potential in the Dirac-Slater potential. To account for the correlation effects, a correction term has also been considered perturbatively. The present calculations show that the spin-polarized technique which is mainly applied to the ground states of atoms may also be applied to atoms ionized in the inner shells with a good degree of accuracy. Received 5 December 2000 and Received in final form 9 April 2001     

Preparation and decoherence of superpositions of electromagnetic field states

In a recent experiment the progressive decoherence of a mesoscopic superposition of two coherent field states in a high-Q cavity, known as Schr?dinger cat state, has been measured for the first time [Brune et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 4887 (1996)]. Here, the full master equation governing the coupled dissipative dynamics of the atom-field system studied in the experiment is formulated and solved numerically for the experimental parameters. The model simulated avoids the approximations underlying an analytically solvable model which is based on a harmonic expansion of the energies of the dressed atomic states and on a treatment of their dynamics within the adiabatic approximation. In particular, the numerical simulations reveal that the coupling of the cavity field mode to its environment causes important decoherence effects already during the initial preparation phase of the Schr?dinger cat state. This phenomenon is investigated in detail with the help of a measure for the purity of states. Moreover, the Hilbert-Schmidt distance of the intended target state, the Schr?dinger cat, to the state that is actually prepared in the experiment is determined. Received 13 September 2000 and Received in final form 22 December 2000     

Spin polarization of electrons elastically scattered from europium and bismuth atoms

We present calculations of differential, integrated elastic, total, momentum transfer cross-sections and spin-polarization parameters S, T and U for scattering of electrons from Eu and Bi atoms in the energy range 2.0 to 500.0 eV using semi-relativistic approach. The target-projectile interaction is represented both by real and complex parameter-free optical potentials in the solution of Dirac equation for the scattered electrons. The results for the differential cross-sections and spin-polarization parameters have been compared with the available calculations and experimental results. Received 17 February 2000 and Received in final form 15 June 2000     

Fringe contrast in three grating Mach-Zehnder atomic interferometers

Several three-grating Mach-Zehnder atomic interferometers have been built and operated in recent years but no general theory of the contrast of the fringes produced by these apparatus is available. The purpose of this paper is to develop this theory, based on the Fresnel-Kirchoff approximate treatment of diffraction. Such a theory has been developed by Turchette et al. [JOSA B 9, 1601 (1992)] but because the necessary multiple integrals were evaluated in a purely numerical way, this treatment was not fully general. We show here how to reduce the computation by analytic means and we are thus able to calculate the contrast with a modest numerical effort. Moreover, we get a simple insight of the contrast reduction related to several defects of a real apparatus. We apply our calculations to existing interferometers as well as to an apparatus working with lithium which is under construction in our laboratory. Received: 24 April 1998 / Revised: 25 October 1998 / Accepted: 11 December 1998     

de Haas-van Alphen effect and the Fermi surface of PrNi5

The Fermi surface of PrNi₅ has been studied by the measurements of the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) effect at temperatures between 0.3 and in magnetic fields up to 12 T. Two dHvA frequencies have been obtained. The electronic structure of PrNi₅ was calculated using the full potential linearized augmented plane wave method. Five sheets of the Fermi surface and the multiple extremal cross sections were determined. First and second sheet have a hole-like structure. The agreement between theory and experiment is obtained by a small downward shift ( 0.1 eV) of the Fermi energy which is probably due to an underestimation of the role of 4 f electrons. Received 9 May 2000 and Received in final form 20 September 2000     

Penning collisions of laser-cooled metastable helium atoms

We present experimental results on the two-body loss rates in a magneto-optical trap of metastable helium atoms. Absolute rates are measured in a systematic way for several laser detunings ranging from -5 to -30 MHz and at different intensities, by monitoring the decay of the trap fluorescence. The dependence of the two-body loss rate coefficient β on the excited state ( 2³ P ₂) and metastable state ( 2³ S ₁) populations is also investigated. From these results we infer a rather uniform rate constant K _sp = (1±0.4)×10^-7 cm³/s. Received 8 September 2000 and Received in final form 19 December 2000