2023/12/05 by Cinins, Arturs, Efimov, Dmitry K., Bruvelis, Martins +6
#Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2312.02801
We investigated the absence of certain bright peaks in Autler-Townes laser excitation spectra of alkali metal atoms. Our research revealed that these dips in the spectra are caused by a specific architecture of adiabatic (or ``laser-dressed'') states in hyperfine (HF) components. The dressed states' analysis pinpointed several cases where constructive and destructive interference between HF excitation pathways in a two-photon excitation scheme limits the available two-photon transitions. This results in a reduction of the conventional two-photon selection rule for the total angular momentum F, from ΔF= 0,± 1 to ΔF≡ 0. Our discovery presents practical methods for selectively controlling the populations of unresolvable HF F-components of ns1/2 Rydberg states in alkali metal atoms. Using numerical simulations with sodium and rubidium atoms, we demonstrate that by blocking the effects of HF interaction with a specially tuned auxiliary control laser field, the deviations from the ideal selectivity of the HF components population can be lower than 0.01% for Na and 0.001% for Rb atoms.