Abstract

Summary: The coherent excitation of high lying Rydberg states using picosecond laser pulses leads to the formation of a spatially localized wavepacket. This has been first shown quantitatively by Parker and Stroud /1/ and later by Alber et al./2/. After excitation the wavepacket oscillates around the atomic core, comparable to an electron in a classical Keppler orbit. The wave function of the superposition of the excited Rydberg states can be written as.

© 1988 Optical Society of America