Rydberg atoms in external fields as an example of open quantum systems with classical chaos

Abstract

We examine the quantum spectra of hydrogen atoms in external magnetic and electric fields above the ionization threshold with respect to signatures of classical chaos characteristics of open systems. The spectra are obtained by calculating wavefunctions and photoionization cross sections in the continuum region with the aid of the complex-coordinate-rotation method. We find that the photoionization cross sections exhibit strong Ericson fluctuations, a quantum feature characteristic of classically chaotic scattering, in energy-field regions where classical trajectory calculations reveal a fractal dependence of the classical ionization time on the initial conditions. We also compare the nearest-neighbour-spacing distributions of complex resonance energies with predictions of random-matrix theories and and that our results are well reproduced by a Ginibre distribution.