Abstract
Recent experimental measurements of the microwave ionization of highly excited hydrogen atoms with principal quantum numbers ranging from n = 30 to 90 are well described by a classical treatment of the nonlinear electron dynamics. In particular, the predictions of the threshold field for the onset of significant ionization is found to coincide with the onset of classical chaos in a one-dimesional model of the experiment. In this brief note I emphasize that this excellent agreement between the theoretical and experimental ionization thresholds requires a proper theoretical treatment of the slow, adiabatic turn-on of the microwave perturbation in which the persistence on nonlinear resonances in the chaotic phase space plays a crucial role.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
J.E. Bayfield and P.M. Koch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 33, 258 (1974).
J.E. Bayfield and L.A. Pinnaduwage, Phys. Rev. Lett. 54, 313 (1985).
K.A.H. van Leeuen, G.v. Oppen, S. Renwick, J.B. Bowlin, P.M. Koch, R.V. Jensen, O. Rath, D. Richards, and J.G. Leopold, Phys. Rev. Lett. 55, 2231 (1985)
P.M. Koch et al., “Chaotic Ionization of Highly Excited H Atoms”, in this volume.
A.J. Lichtenberg and M.A. Lieberman, Regular and Stochastic Motion, (Springer, New York, 1983). See also R.V. Jensen, “Classical Chaos”, (to appear in American Scientist, January 1987) and references therein.
J.G. Leopold and I.C. Percival, J. Phys. B 12, 709 (1979).
R.V. Jensen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 1365 (1982).
R.V. Jensen, Phys. Rev. 3OA, 386 (1984).
R.V. Jensen, in Chaotic Behavior in Quantum Systems, edited by G. Casati, (Plenum, New York, 1985) p. 171.
N.B. Delone, V.P. Krainov, D.L. Shepelyansky, Usp. Fiz. Nauk it140, 355 (1983) (Sov. Phys. Usp. 26, 551 (1983).
R.V. Jensen, “The Effects of Classical Resonances on the Chaotic Microwave Ionization of Highly Excited Hydrogen Atoms”, to appear in the Proceedings of the Adriatico Research Conference on Quantum Chaos, Trieste, 1986,published by Physica Scripta.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1987 Springer-Verlag
About this paper
Cite this paper
Jensen, R.V. (1987). Chaotic ionization of highly excited hydrogen atoms. In: Kim, Y.S., Zachary, W.W. (eds) The Physics of Phase Space Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos Geometric Quantization, and Wigner Function. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 278. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-17894-5_340
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-17894-5_340
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-17894-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47901-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive