Abstract
In photoionization microscopy experiments, an atom in an electric field is ionized by a laser with sharply defined frequency, the electron is drawn toward a position-sensitive detector, and the current is measured as a function of position. Multiple classical paths lead from the atom to any point in the classically allowed region on the detector, and waves traveling along these paths produce an interference pattern. If a magnetic field is added parallel to the electric field, trajectories become chaotic. There is an infinite set of different families of trajectories, leading to an extremely complicated interference patterns on the detector. We present calculations predicting the kind of structure that will be seen in experiments.
Highlights
Recent developments in the field of photoelectron imaging have allowed the direct observation of the oscillatory structure of a microscopic wave-function on a macroscopic scale [1,2,3,4]
Six other red resonances are given for their interesting interaction features with the magnetic field, which we will use as an example in later discussions
Since the diamagnetic interaction is proportional to ρ2, the energies of these red states are more sensitive to magnetic fields than those of the corresponding blue states
Summary
Recent developments in the field of photoelectron imaging have allowed the direct observation of the oscillatory structure of a microscopic wave-function on a macroscopic scale [1,2,3,4]. A quantum theory for photoelectron microscopy in both hydrogen and lithium atoms was developed by Zhao et al [15, 16] They found that Stark resonances dramatically change the electron spatial distribution. The spectrum of hydrogen atom in parallel fields has been studied by many researchers at the energy far below the Stark saddle point [22,23,24]. As already mentioned, it is known that for hydrogen in a pure electric field, resonances have a large effect [16], greatly changing the outgoing waves in narrow ranges of energy. In this paper we calculate by quantum theory the patterns that may be seen in photoionization microscopy experiments on hydrogen in parallel electric and magnetic fields, giving particular attention to the effects of resonances. There are two parts to our calculations. (1) We find the energies of resonances in parallel fields using the complex-rotation technique (CRT) [25]. (2) Using a wavepacket propagation method, we compute the wave function extending to large distances, and show how the patterns on the detector change when a parallel magnetic field is applied
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