Multiple Time Scales in the Microwave Ionization of Rydberg Atoms

1995

We investigate the time dependence of the ionization probability of Rydberg atoms driven by microwave fields, both numerically and experimentally. Our exact quantum results provide evidence for an algebraic decay law on suitably chosen time scales, a phenomenon that is considered to be the signature of nonhyperbolic scattering in unbounded classically chaotic motion.