Abstract

In a highly excited molecular Rydberg state, the orbital motion of the Rydberg electron has a similar period as the vibrational or rotational motion of the molecular core, and therefore, the system cannot be treated by an adiabatic approximation, in which the motions of the electron and the core are separated from each other. In classical mechanics, chaos would emerge in such non-separable motions of the Rydberg electron and the molecular ion core. Therefore, experimental investigation of the molecular Rydberg states affords a rare opportunity to clarify characteristic behavior of a quantum system, whose classical counterpart exhibits chaos.

© 1995 IEEE