Collisional properties of highly excited rubidium atoms

Abstract

The quenching cross sections of various highly excited states of rubidium have been measured for different perturbing gases (He, Ar, Xe, ground-state rubidium). The quenching of the hydrogenic nF states is shown to be mainly a l-mixing process. The behaviour as a function of n (9<or=n<or=21) and the magnitude of the l-mixing cross sections seem mainly to reflect the range of interaction between the highly excited electron and the perturber.