Atomic triply excited double Rydberg states of lanthanum investigated by selective laser excitation - art. no. 031402

The atomic triply excited double Rydberg states (TEDRS) of La have been stu died both experimentally and theoretically. It is revealed that in such an asymmetric four-body system where three electrons have very different orbit al energies, the electronic correlations can be understood by means of deco mposing into different dielectronic correlations that play different roles time-dependently. The correlations depend strongly on the relative excited orbital energies of three valence electrons. Our theoretical approach based on a semiclassical model is able to interpret the two observed patterns of La ion distributions among high Rydberg states resulted from the decay of TEDRS.