Journal
JOURNAL OF PHYSICS B-ATOMIC MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS
Volume 49, Issue 7, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0953-4075/49/7/074007
Keywords
Rydberg atoms; Laguerre-Gauss beams; selection rules
Categories
Funding
- FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (Portugal) [SFRH/BD/52323/2013]
- Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) [2013/02816-8]
- AFOSR [FA9550-12-1-0434]
- U.S. Army [W911NF-15-1-0638]
- CNPq
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We consider the excitation of Rydberg states through photons carrying an intrinsic orbital angular momentum degree of freedom. Laguerre-Gauss modes, with a helical wave-front structure, correspond to such a set of laser beams, which carry l(0) units of orbital angular momentum in their propagation direction, with l(0) the winding number. We demonstrate that, in a proper geometry setting, this orbital angular momentum can be transferred to the internal degrees of freedom of the atoms, thus violating the standard dipole selection rules. Higher orbital angular momentum states become accessible through a single photon excitation process. We investigate how the spacial structure of the Laguerre-Gauss beam affects the radial coupling strength, assuming the simplest case of hydrogen-like wave functions. Finally we discuss a generalization of the angular momentum coupling, in order to include the effects of the fine and hyperfine splitting, in the context of the Wigner-Eckart theorem.
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