Field-ionization processes in high Rydberg states of Rb under a rotating electric field

Field ionization of high Rydberg manifold states (n=112–137) of rubidium-85 under a rotating electric field has been investigated experimentally and theoretically. Applying a rapidly reversed electric field with a small static perpendicular field to rotate the total electric field around zero, we have observed substantial increase of the fraction of the tunneling field-ionization process and a profound broadening of its ionization peak over a wide range of field strengths with increasing transverse electric field. The observed tunneling field-ionization fraction is almost independent of the slew rate of the applied electric field, and also on the principal quantum number n over the range investigated. To compare with these experimental results, theoretical calculations have been performed with a successive two-step regime. As the first step we calculated the redistributions of magnetic quantum number m_ℓ and parabolic quantum number n₁−n₂ of the states under the rotating electric field. Then the following time evolution of the manifold states with ∣m_ℓ∣⩽3 was traced on the Stark map in a coherent as well as an incoherent model. The calculated results are generally in good agreement with the experimental ones. The increase of the tunneling field-ionization fraction under a rotating electric field plays an essential role in achieving the high efficiency in the recently proposed selective-field-ionization scheme for high Rydberg atoms.