Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: We investigate the effect of intercombination transitions in excitation hopping processes such as those found in F\"orster resonance energy transfer. Taking strontium Rydberg states as our model system, the breakdown of $LS$ coupling leads to weakly allowed transitions between Rydberg states of different spin quantum number. We show that the long-range interactions between two Rydberg atoms can be affected by these weakly allowed spin transitions, and the effect is greatest when there is a near degeneracy between the initial state and a state with a different spin quantum number. We also consider a case of four atoms in a spin chain and show that a spin impurity can resonantly hop along the chain. By engineering the many-body energy levels of the spin chain, the breakdown of $LS$ coupling due to interelectronic effects in individual atoms can be mapped onto a spatial separation of the total spin and the total orbital angular momentum along the spin chain.
Source: Physical Review A
Institution: Durham University
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2211593953