Electron-impact excitation of atoms in the presence of a nearly resonant laser field

Abstract

We have studied the electron-impact excitation of an atom, in the presence of a laser field whose photon energy is tuned close to the energy difference between two excited final states. Both the laser-projectile and the laser-target interactions are treated nonperturbatively, while the electron-atom interaction is treated within the first Born approximation. As an application, we have analyzed the resonant laser-assisted excitation of the 21S and 21P states of helium. The agreement between the present nonperturbative results and previous perturbative ones is excellent, except for very small detunings. The present nonperturbative treatment also shows that the results given by perturbation theory on both sides of the resonance, when plotted as a function of the laser frequency, correspond to the excitation of different Floquet pseudostates. This is related to the presence of avoided crossings in the diagram of the Floquet pseudoenergies, as a function of the laser frequency. © 1990 The American Physical Society.