Ionization of Rydberg atoms by standing-wave light fields

When electromagnetic radiation induces atomic transitions, the size of the atom is usually much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation, allowing the spatial variation of the radiation field’s phase to be neglected in the description of transition rates. Somewhat unexpectedly, this approximation, known as the electric dipole approximation, is still valid for the ionization of micrometre-sized atoms in highly excited Rydberg states by laser light with a wavelength of about the same size. Here we employ a standing-wave laser field as a spatially resolving probe within the volume of a Rydberg atom to show that the photoionization process only occurs near the nucleus, within a volume that is small with respect to both the atom and the laser wavelength. This evidence resolves the apparent inconsistency of the electric dipole approximation’s validity for photoionization of Rydberg atoms, and it verifies the theory of light–matter interaction in a limiting case.