Nonlinear spectroscopy of barium in parallel electric and magnetic fields

Abstract

We report on the experimental spectral observations of barium in parallel electric and magnetic fields. The laser pulse is linearly polarized along or perpendicular to the fields, leading to the states m = 0 and the states m = ±1 populated, respectively, by one photon excitation. By sweeping the electric field, we observe the linear and nonlinear splitting of the diamagnetic spectrum as the electric field increases. The spectral anticrossing is induced by the atomic core effect. The Stark spectrum also shows an obvious nonlinear quadratic behavior when the applied magnetic field varies strongly. All spectra are well explained by the full quantum calculation after taking the quantum defect effects of the channel ns up to nf into account.