Tailoring Very-High-n Circular Wavepackets

Abstract

We describe a protocol to generate transiently localized circular wavepackets in very-high-n Rydberg states. These are created from strongly-polarized quasi-one-dimensional Rydberg states by applying a transverse pulsed electric field. The resulting wavepacket becomes transiently localized as the result of focusing and travels in a nearly circular Bohr-like orbit around the nucleus for several orbital periods. The localization properties can be controlled by carefully choosing the shape of the field pulse, in particular, its rise and fall times. Remarkably, the wavepackets exhibit classical revivals after the initial dephasing on time scales shorter than those expected for quantum revivals.