Abstract

An electron in a Rydberg state of an atom could be stabilized in a strong ionizing laser field in the sense that the electron could not be ionized into the continuum with 100% probability. This so-called interference stabilization was first proposed by Fedorov et al. [1]. An electron in the ground state of an atom could also be “stabilized” or trapped in the Rydberg state when interacting with an intense laser pulse [2]. This is a dynamic phenomenon. In the intense laser field, the Rydberg states and the continuum undergo ponderomotive shifts resulting in a dynamic multiphoton resonance between the ground and the shifted Rydberg state. Further absorption of one more photon by the electron from the shifted Rydberg state into the continuum would have a distinct probability to be trapped in a Rydberg state through interference stabilization à-la-Fedorov. These were observed in experiments.

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