ELECTRON-IMPACT EXCITATION OF THE 3-D-2 STATE OF SODIUM FROM THE OPTICALLY PREPARED 3-P-2 STATE

An experimental investigation of electron-impact excitation of the 3 D -2-state from the laser-excited 3 P-2 state of atomic sodium is report ed for 30 eV incident electron energy. A detailed consideration of the measurement technique is presented, based on the density matrix descr iption of electron-impact-induced atomic transitions for target atoms in which the spin of the target electron is unchanged. It is shown tha t some inference about excitation probabilities between individual mag netic substates of the P- to D-state transition can be made from measu rements of the four pseudo-Stokes parameters. A description of the ine lastic scattering experiment and an analysis of the experimental measu rements in terms of both the standard atomic collision parameters and magnetic substate excitation probabilities are presented. Convergent c lose-coupling theoretical calculations are compared with the experimen tal results and show good agreement.