Coherently excited atoms in external electric fields

Maurice Lombardi (1) , Marc Giroud (1) , Joseph Macek (2)

1 LSP - Laboratoire de Spectrométrie Physique
2 Fachbereich Physik [Freie Univeristät Berlin] | Department of Physics [Freie Univeristät Berlin]

Various manifestations of coherent mixtures of even- and odd-parity eigenstates of collision-excited atomic hydrogen in external electric fields are discussed on general grounds. We show that when even-and odd-parity states are coherently excited, application of an electric field perpendicular to the velocity axis induces orientation in the originally unoriented atoms. Circular polarization of the decay radiation is an observable consequence of the orientation.

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]

Maurice Lombardi, Marc Giroud, Joseph Macek. Coherently excited atoms in external electric fields. Physical Review A, 1975, 11, pp.1114-1117. ⟨10.1103/PHYSREVA.11.1114⟩. ⟨hal-00974329⟩