Effects of blackbody radiation on highly excited atoms

Quasiclassical calculations of blackbody-radiation-induced depopulation rates and effective lifetimes of RydbergnS,nP, andnБетеров1, Ryabtsev2, Tretyakov3 et al. 2009Phys. Rev. A378122512View full textAdd to dashboardCite

“…Gallagher and Cooke [3] used the sum rules to derive a simple approximation for BBR-induced depopulation rate:…”

“…(13)] for prompt estimates of the BBR-induced depopulation rates, which better agrees with the results of numerical calculations for lower n, than the commonly used Eq. (8) [3]. The simple scaling laws [Eqs.…”

“…Later on it has been shown that interaction of Rydberg atoms with blackbody radiation (BBR) strongly affects the measured lifetimes [2]. BBR-induced depopulation rates were estimated by Cooke and Gallagher [3] for sodium Rydberg states with n=18 and 19, and accurately calculated by Farley and Wing [4] for alkalimetal nS, nP, and nD Rydberg atoms with n ≤ 30 using Coulomb approximation [5]. Radiative lifetimes of sodium nS and nD Rydberg states with 17≤n≤28 were measured by Spencer et al [6] in a cooled environment in order to reduce the influence of BBR.…”

“…Section III is devoted to the calculations of the temperaturedependent BBR-induced depopulation rates. The analytical formulas for estimates of BBR-induced depopulation rates [3] are modified to improve the agreement with numerical results. In Section IV the results of the numerical calculations of effective lifetimes of Rydberg states are presented and compared with available experimental and theoretical data.…”

Evolution dynamics of a dense frozen Rydberg gas to plasma

“…mechanisms other than radiative decay, since the radiative lifetime of the Rb 44d state is in excess of 70 s [23]. The rate of depopulation of the 44d state due to blackbody stimulated transitions corresponds to an effective lifetime of 88 s [24], and the strongest transitions are to nearby states that will field ionize in the pulse that we apply. Hence, we can be sure that the decline in the ion signal as a function of delay is due to collisional processes that drive population to states that cannot be field ionized in our pulse.…”