Inner-electron ionization for wave-packet detection

Abstract

We describe the use of time-resolved inner-electron ionization as a method of detecting the time evolution of Rydberg wave packets. The method is sufficiently sensitive that it can be used to monitor wave packets for extended times, and its Fourier transform provides a cross correlation between constituent eigenstates, allowing the phases of the constituent eigenstates at the core to be retrieved. These phases, and the easily determined amplitudes of the constituent eigenstates, can be used to construct the wave function of the wave packet.

Nondispersing Wave Packets

“…Since the orbital period is given by T 2n 3 the dispersion in energy level spacings implies that the orbital periods of the higher n states in the wave packet are slightly longer than those of the lower n states in the wave packet, and thus the initial spatial localization of the wave packet disappears after a few orbits. Since there is a finite number of states in the wave packet, typically about five, at a later time, the revival time, the wave-packet rephases such that there is again a localized wave packet, and the observation of several revivals has been reported [8][9][10]. However, even in the best of cases only tens of orbits were observed before the localization disappeared, presumably due to technical dephasing.…”