Physics Commons^™

The Absorption Spectrum Of The Hydrogen Atom In Crossed Electric And Magnetic Fields, Dongmei Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation reports the theoretical interpretation of the measured absorption spectrum of hydrogen atoms in crossed electric and magnetic fields. Closed-orbit theory is modified from two-dimensions to three-dimensions to interpret the large scale structure in the absorption spectrum. A new computational method---a Chirped-Fourier-Transform---is developed to extract the closed orbits from an energy spectrum. A quantitative model is provided to calculate the continuum absorption. We prove that the observed continuum absorption is proportional to the flux of electrons along trajectories which escape within a short time. Einstein-Brillouin-Keller (EBK) quantization theory is applied to obtain an approximate energy spectrum. Our results prove …