A classical analogue for adiabatic Stark splitting in non-hydrogenic atoms

Abstract

For highly excited low-ℓ states of atoms, a rising electric field causes a mixing between angular momenta that gives rise to Stark states. A relatively simple situation occurs if the electric field is not strong enough to mix states with adjacent principle quantum numbers. If the initial state has slightly lower (higher) energy than the degenerate manifold, then the state adiabatically connects to a Stark state with the electron on the low (high) potential energy side of the atom. We show that purely classical calculations for non-hydrogenic atoms have an adiabatic connection to extreme dipole moments similar to quantum systems. We use a simple map to show that the classical dynamics arises from the direction of the precession of the Runge–Lenz vector when the electric field is off. As a demonstration of the importance of this effect, we perform classical calculations of charge exchange and show that the total cross section for charge transfer and for ionization strongly depend on whether or not a pure Coulomb potential is used.