Resonant States in Negative Ions

Resonant states are multiply excited states in atoms and ions that have enough energy to decay by emitting an electron. The ability to emit an electron and the strong electron correlation (which is extra strong in negative ions) makes these states both interesting and challenging from a theoretical point of view. The main contribution in this thesis is a method, which combines the use of B splines and complex rotation, to solve the three-electron Schrödinger equation treating all three electrons equally. It is used to calculate doubly excited and triply excited states of 4S symmetry with even parity in He-. For the doubly excited states there are experimental and theoretical data to compare with. For the triply excited states there is only theoretical data available and only for one of the resonances. The agreement is in general good. For the triply excited state there is a significant and interesting difference in the width between our calculation and another method. A cause for this deviation is suggested. The method is also used to find a resonant state of 4S symmetry with odd parity in H2-. This state, in this extremely negative system, has been predicted by two earlier calculations but is highly controversial. Several other studies presented here focus on two-electron systems. In one, the effect of the splitting of the degenerate H(n=2) thresholds in H-, on the resonant states converging to this threshold, is studied. If a completely degenerate threshold is assumed an infinite series of states is expected to converge to the threshold. Here states of 1P symmetry and odd parity are examined, and it is found that the relativistic and radiative splitting of the threshold causes the series to end after only three resonant states. Since the independent particle model completely fails for doubly excited states, several schemes of alternative quantum numbers have been suggested. We investigate the so called DESB (Doubly Excited Symmetry Basis) quantum numbers in several calculations. For the doubly excited states of He- mentioned above we investigate one resonance and find that it cannot be assigned DESB quantum numbers unambiguously. We also investigate these quantum numbers for states of 1S even parity in He. We find two types of mixing of DESB states in the doubly excited states calculated. We also show that the amount of mixing of DESB quantum numbers can be inferred from the value of the cosine of the inter-electronic angle. In a study on Li- the calculated cosine values are used to identify doubly excited states measured in a photodetachment experiment. In particular a resonant state that violates a propensity rule is found.

Experimental Investigation of Three-Dimensional Single and Double optical Lattices

A complete laser cooling setup was built, with focus on threedimensional near-resonant optical lattices for cesium. These consist of regularly ordered micropotentials, created by the interference of four laser beams. One key feature of optical lattices is an inherent ”Sisyphus cooling” process. It efficiently extracts kinetic energy from the atoms, leading to equilibrium temperatures of a few µK. The corresponding kinetic energy is lower than the depth of the potential wells, so that atoms can be trapped. We performed detailed studies of the cooling processes in optical lattices by using the time-of-flight and absorption-imaging techniques. We investigated the dependence of the equilibrium temperature on the optical lattice parameters, such as detuning, optical potential and lattice geometry. The presence of neighbouring transitions in the cesium hyperfine level structure was used to break symmetries in order to identify, which role “red” and “blue” transitions play in the cooling. We also examined the limits for the cooling process in optical lattices, and the possible difference in steady-state velocity distributions for different directions. Moreover, in collaboration with ´Ecole Normale Sup´erieure in Paris, numerical simulations were performed in order to get more insight in the cooling dynamics of optical lattices. Optical lattices can keep atoms almost perfectly isolated from the environment and have therefore been suggested as a platform for a host of possible experiments aimed at coherent quantum manipulations, such as spin-squeezing and the implementation of quantum logic-gates. We developed a novel way to trap two different cesium ground states in two distinct, interpenetrating optical lattices, and to change the distance between sites of one lattice relative to sites of the other lattice. This is a first step towards the implementation of quantum simulation schemes in optical lattices.