Two-photon atomic level widths at finite temperatures
Abstract
The thermal two-photon level broadening of the excited energy levels in the hydrogen and H-like helium is evaluated via the imaginary part of thermal two-loop self-energy correction for bound electron. All the derivations are presented in the framework of rigorous quantum electrodynamic theory at finite temperatures and are applicable for the H-like ions. On this basis, we found a contribution to the level broadening induced by the blackbody radiation which is fundamentally different from the usual line broadening caused by the stimulated two-photon decay and the Raman scattering of thermal photons. Numerical calculations of the two-loop thermal correction to the two-photon width for the state in hydrogen and singly ionized helium atoms show that the effect could significantly exceed the higher-order relativistic and radiative QED corrections commonly included in the calculations. In addition, the thermal two-loop self-energy correction significantly exceeds the "ordinary" stimulated one-photon depopulation rate at the relevant laboratory temperatures. In this work, detailed analysis and the corresponding comparison of the effect with the existing laboratory measurements in H-like ions are carried out.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2006.03928,
title = {Two-photon atomic level widths at finite temperatures},
author = {T. Zalialiutdinov and A. Anikin and D. Solovyev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.03928},
year = {2020}
}