Decay,interference, and chaos

We establish a close quantitative analogy between the excitation and ionization process of highly excited one electron Rydberg states under microwave driving and charge transport across disordered 1D lattices. Our results open a new arena for Anderson localization -- a disorder induced effect -- in a large class of perfectly deterministic, decaying atomic systems.Received: 15 November 2002, Published online: 8 July 2003PACS: 32.80.Rm Multiphoton ionization and excitation to highly excited states (e.g., Rydberg states) - 05.45.Mt Quantum chaos; semiclassical methods - 72.15.Rn Localization effects (Anderson or weak localization)