Coaxial Laser-Fast Particle Beam Recurrence (Periodic Orbit) Spectroscopy
This project unifies laser technology with particle accelerator technology to produce a sophisticated spectrometer for precision studies of high energy atomic and molecular states. The preparation of these states involves two steps; the first stage utilizes a collision process to prepare a metastable state of an atom or molecule in a fast beam. In the second stage a laser beam overlaps the fast beam coaxially and results in a transition from the metastable state to a higher energy state. Helium states up to principle quantum number 100 have been laser excited in vacuum and in the presence of a uniform electric field from the collisionally-prepared 2 S state and detected using electric field ionization. Using this experimental approach, work is under way to study quantum chaos. The excited helium atom in an electric field provides a simple two electron system for investigating how classical and quantum mechanics are connected in a chaotic regime.
However, we will not be put off by complexity - neither conceptual,
computational nor experimental. We have made measurements on atomic systems
with more complex cores, like argon and xenon. We are presently doing experiments with molecules.