Generation of an angular and radial Rydberg wave packet in a single laser pulse - art. no. 011405

Based on nonperturbative numerical solutions of the Schrodinger equation it is demonstrated that a laser pulse with frequency tuned in resonance with a certain Rydberg level and the ground state of H(1s) generate a dynamical angular and radial electronic wave packet containing a large fraction of hi gh-angular-momentum states. Only for sufficiently long laser pulses do the high-angular-momentum states appear and the excitation probability is then close to unity. The wave packet is predominantly built up of field-free eig enstates belonging to two principal II levels with a very different angular -momentum profile of each level. This induces a slow quasiperiodic fluctuat ion between a localized and delocalized electron density.