corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 102 » Issue 10
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 103001 (2009) [4 pages]

Nondispersing Bohr Wave Packets

Download: PDF (477 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

H. Maeda1,2,*, J. H. Gurian1, and T. F. Gallagher1
1Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-0714, USA
2PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan

Received 30 September 2008; published 9 March 2009

See accompanying Physics Viewpoint

Long-lived, nondispersing circular, or Bohr, wave packets are produced starting from Li Rydberg atoms by exposing them first to a linearly polarized microwave field at the orbital frequency, 17.6 GHz at principal quantum number n=72, which locks the electron’s motion into an approximately linear orbit in which the electron oscillates in phase with the microwave field. The microwave polarization is changed to circular polarization slowly compared to the orbital frequency, and the electron’s motion follows, resulting in a nondispersing Bohr wave packet.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.103001
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.103001
PACS:
32.80.Rm, 32.80.Ee, 32.80.Qk

*Present address: Department of Physics and Mathematics, Aoyama Gakuin University, Fuchinobe, Sagamihara 229-8558, Japan.

See Also

Comment: S. Yoshida, C. O. Reinhold, J. Burgdörfer, and F. B. Dunning, Comment on “Nondispersing Bohr Wave Packets”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 149301 (2009).

Reply: H. Maeda, J. H. Gurian, and T. F. Gallagher, Maeda et al. Reply:, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 149302 (2009).

 
< Previous Article | Next Article >