Mainz 2017 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 31: Poster Session III

A 31.33: Poster

Thursday, March 9, 2017, 17:00–19:00, P OG1

Perturbation-induced quantum scars and Rydberg atoms in dense background gases — •Perttu Luukko and Jan-Michael Rost — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, D-01187 Dresden, Germany

Quantum scarring is the tendency of high-energy quantum eigenstates to condense around moderately unstable classical periodic orbits in a chaotic system. Recently we have shown (Luukko et al., Sci. Rep. 6 37656, 2016) that a similar phenomenon occurs in separable systems with local perturbations in the potential landscape. In this case strong and numerous scars form around periodic orbits of the corresponding unperturbed system even if the perturbations are randomly placed. The scarring can be explained by considering the effect of classical periodic orbits to the level structure of the unperturbed system in a semiclassical theory.

A Rydberg atom interacts with nearby ground-state atoms mainly through a short-range polarization potential, while the unperturbed Coulomb potential is separable. This creates the necessary setting for perturbation-induced scarring. Indeed, our simulations for Rb predict that in the presence of a high number of randomly placed perturbers a significant fraction of lowest-energy electronic states that split from a constant n manifold are scarred. The scarring comes with a shift in energy, which might be relevant for experiments probing Rydberg spectra in cold and dense atom clouds. Ultra-long range bound molecular states in these systems might also be connected to the formation of scars.