What is quantum interference in atoms?

Abstract

A new approach treats spin-orbit and electric-dipole interactions simultaneously and proves that the notion of quantum "interference" is a misinterpretation based on inappropriate assumptions. Instead, fine-structure (fs-) quantum beats result from the conservation of the spin in spontaneous E1 transitions between in-phase precession states with different nutation frequencies as imposed by the spin-orbit interaction. The theory also adds new aspects regarding the origin of sensitized fluorescence by showing that mixed states and not fs-eigenstates are the most probable ones. Moreover, it predicts orientationally dependent lifetimes in spin-orbit interacting sublevels, dynamically reduced transition probabilities, and Fano-type lineshapes.

Atomic Cascade Computations

“…While the distinction of individual blocks and steps of a cascade has been found very useful for all practical purposes, this discrimination obviously fails when the relaxation is affected by (quantum) interferences of different pathways [44,45]. If, for example, the finestructure splitting of two or more intermediate levels (for two subsequent Auger steps) is small or comparable to the natural line widths of these levels, the angular emission of the emitted Auger electrons can no longer be described by an incoherent summation over individual pathways [46,47].…”