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arXiv · 1612.02039

Localizing High-Lying Rydberg Wave Packets with Two-Color Laser Fields

Seyedreza Larimian·Ji-Wei Geng·Stefan Roither·Daniil Kartashov·Li Zhang·Mu-Xue Wang·Qihuang Gong·Liang-You Peng·Christoph Lemell·Shuhei Yoshida·Joachim Burgdörfer·Andrius Baltuška·Markus Kitzler·Xinhua Xie
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Abstract

We demonstrate control over the localization of high-lying Rydberg wave packets in argon atoms with phase-locked orthogonally polarized two-color (OTC) laser fields. With a reaction microscope, we measured ionization signals of high-lying Rydberg states induced by a weak dc field and black-body radiation as a function of the relative phase between the two-color fields. We find that the dc-field ionization yields of high-lying Rydberg argon atoms oscillate with the relative two-color phase with a period of $2π$ while the photoionization signal by black-body radiation shows a period of $π$. These observations are a clear signature of the asymmetric localization of electrons recaptured into high-lying Rydberg states after conclusion of the laser pulse and are supported by a semiclassical simulation of argon-OTC laser interaction. Our findings thus open an effective pathway to control the localization of high-lying Rydberg wave packets.

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Seyedreza Larimian, Ji-Wei Geng, Stefan Roither, Daniil Kartashov, Li Zhang, Mu-Xue Wang, Qihuang Gong, Liang-You Peng, Christoph Lemell, Shuhei Yoshida, Joachim Burgdörfer, Andrius Baltuška, Markus Kitzler, Xinhua Xie. 2017-03-30. Localizing High-Lying Rydberg Wave Packets with Two-Color Laser Fields. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.96.021403

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