Atoms in Strong Fields.
Abstract
The response of a bound electron to an external monochromatic field is a complicated process, that gives rise to a variety of phenomena. This problem has proven much richer than could he suspected at the origins of quantum mechanics. This is hardly surprising, because at the root of its richness lies the full complicacy of classical nonlinear dynamics, that only in recent times we have begun to explore. In 1974 Bayfield and Koch found that the ionization of highly excited hydrogen atoms by microwaves fields has a threshold character with respect to field strength: it is very small at very small intensity but it increases abruptly at a certain threshold intensity. This was found to be an essentially classical phenomenon, the observed threshold being practically the same as the classical threshold above which the classical dynamics of the electron becomes chaotic. Chaotic ionization was extensively investigated in the 80's, both experimentally and theoretically. jg p.3
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1995
- Accession Number
- ADA294589
Entities
People
- Giulio Casati