Atoms in Fields: Periodic Orbits and Bifurcations

摘要

Work involved theoretical interpretation of measured absorption spectra of atomsin electric and magnetic fields. Fourier transformation of the absorption spectrum produces what we call the 'Recurrence Spectrum.' It consists of a series of sharp peaks, and each peak is correlated with a 'recurrence': an electron orbit that goes away from the atom and later returns. We derived general formulas that relate measured recurrences to properties of classical electron orbits and quantum wave functions. Good agreement was found between this theory and experiments. More refined experiments showed bifurcation and proliferation of recurrences correlated with the transition from orderly to chaotic motion of the electron. Classical bifurcation theory was extended and adapted to describe these phenomena.