Scaling laws of Rydberg excitons

Abstract

The recent observation of excitons in highly excited states has allowed the study of Rydberg physics in cuprous oxide crystals. This opens the unique possibility to elaborate on similarities and differences between Rydberg atoms and Rydberg excitons, as done here experimentally and theoretically for quantities related to the splitting of multiplets with particular principal quantum number $n$ in zero and finite electric or magnetic fields. The authors find characteristic scaling laws with $n$ with some discrepancies between excitons and atoms, but surprisingly, they find mostly similarities, even though the underlying physics, such as the complex valence band structure, are quite different.