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Quantum Poincaré Recurrences for a Hydrogen Atom in a Microwave Field

2000; American Physical Society; Volume: 84; Issue: 18 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.84.4088

1092-0145

Giuliano Benenti, Giulio Casati, Giulio Maspero, Dima L. Shepelyansky,

Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics

We study the time dependence of the ionization probability of Rydberg atoms driven by a microwave field, both in classical and in quantum mechanics. The quantum survival probability follows the classical one up to the Heisenberg time and then decays algebraically as P(t) approximately 1/t. This decay law derives from the exponentially long times required to escape from some region of the phase space, due to tunneling and localization effects. We also provide parameter values which should allow one to observe such decay in laboratory experiments.