Rydberg Electron Interferometry

A recent quantum mechanical study [W. Isaacs and M. A. Morrison, Phys. Rev. A 57, R9 (1998)] discovered pronounced oscillations in cross sections for near-resonant energy transfer collisions of rare-gas atoms with initially aligned Rydberg atoms. We analyze such collisions for 17d_m→18p_m^′ transitions in the Ca-He system semiclassically and show that the oscillations arise from a phase interference process unique to Rydberg target states. In addition to explaining the origin of these structures, this analysis explains their disappearance when the relative Ca-He velocity goes to infinity and/or the energy defect vanishes and their dependence on the initial and final magnetic quantum numbers of the transition.