Abstract

This paper investigates the Penning ionization (PI) processes in cold gas media of alkali atoms. The PI autoionization widths of atomic pairs show a drastic dependence (by orders of magnitude) on the orbital quantum numbers of Rydberg atoms involved in a long-range dipole-dipole interaction. The nontrivial dependence of the PI efficiency on the size of colliding particles was considered, with a particular accent to the applications in the research of cold matter created in the experiments with magneto-optical traps. We have analytically described the optimal, highly asymmetric configurations of atomic Rydberg pairs, which lead to an explosive intensification (by several orders of magnitude) of a free-electron escaping due to PI. The excited states of atoms in the optimal pairs turn out to have a strong difference in atomic shell sizes. The optimal pairs’ properties may be favorable for the generation of primary (seeding) charged particles when a cold Rydberg medium evolves into a cold plasma. Within the framework of the semiclassical approach, we have obtained universal analytical formulas containing two adjustable parameters and present here their values in tabulated form, which allows estimating the PI rate constants for various pairs of alkali metal atoms.

Graphical abstract

中文翻译：

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涉及冷里德堡碱金属原子的Penningionization过程

摘要

本文研究了碱性原子冷气体介质中的潘宁电离（PI）过程。原子对的PI自电离宽度对参与长距离偶极-偶极相互作用的Rydberg原子的轨道量子数表现出极大的依赖性（数量级）。考虑了PI效率对碰撞粒子大小的非平凡依赖，特别强调了在磁光阱实验中产生的冷物质研究中的应用。我们已经分析性地描述了原子Rydberg对的最佳，高度不对称配置，这导致由于PI导致的自由电子逸出爆炸性增强（几个数量级）。最佳对中原子的激发态在原子壳尺寸上有很大差异。当冷的里德伯格介质演变成冷的等离子体时，最佳对的性质可能有利于初级（种子）带电粒子的产生。在半经典方法的框架内，我们获得了包含两个可调参数的通用分析公式，并在此处以表格形式显示了它们的值，从而可以估算各种成对的碱金属原子的PI速率常数。

图形概要