Microwave Control of Rydberg Atoms

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).In this experimental program highly excited atoms are exposed to microwave fields with two goals. The first is to understand how a many level atomic system interacts with a radiation field over a broad range of atomic states, from one in which the frequency is low compared to the intrinsic atomic frequency to one in which the frequency is high compared to the atomic frequency, high enough that the absorption of one photon can ionize the atom. In some regimes the response of the atom is better described classically and in others quantum mechanically. Understanding the connections between the two different descriptions is a major goal. The second is to manipulate and control the properties of atoms by varying the polarization, frequency and amplitude of microwave fields to which they are exposed. An understanding of this control in both classical and quantum terms is sought.The broad impacts of this work are several. First, it is likely to lead to new and useful insights into the connections between classical and quantum mechanics. Such insights are particularly useful to physicists and chemists, and they are of wide popular interest. Manipulating and controlling excited atoms is of great current interest for anti hydrogen and quantum computing research, and it is an excellent prototype system for laser manipulation of molecules of interest in physical chemistry.