Abstract
We have induced adiabatic transitions in pairs of frozen Rydberg sodium atoms of a supersonic beam. The diatomic transition takes place in a time-dependent electric field and originates from the adiabatic change of the internal state of the pair induced by the dipole-dipole interaction. This is experimentally achieved by sweeping an electric field across the energy degeneracy . Our results fully agree with a two-level Landau-Zener model in the diatom system.
- Received 18 September 2009
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.133003
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