Angular Focusing, Squeezing, and Rainbow Formation in a Strongly Driven Quantum Rotor
- 28 September 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 87 (16), 163601
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.87.163601
Abstract
Semiclassical catastrophes in the dynamics of a quantum rotor (molecule) driven by a strong time-varying field are considered. We show that for strong enough fields, a sharp peak in the rotor angular distribution can be achieved via a time-domain focusing phenomenon, followed by the formation of rainbowlike angular structures. A strategy leading to the enhanced angular squeezing is proposed that uses a specially designed sequence of pulses. The predicted effects can be observed in many processes, ranging from molecular alignment (orientation) by laser fields to heavy-ion collisions, and the trapping of cold atoms by a standing light wave.This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
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