Blackbody radiation Zeeman shift in Rydberg atoms

Published

June 23, 2025

Author(s)

Kyle Beloy, Benjamin Hunt, Roger Brown, Tobias Bothwell, Youssef Hassan, Jacob Siegel, Tanner Grogan, Andrew Ludlow

Abstract

We consider the Zeeman shift in Rydberg atoms induced by room-temperature blackbody radiation (BBR). BBR shifts to the Rydberg levels are dominated by the familiar BBR Stark shift. However, the BBR Stark shift and the BBR Zeeman shift exhibit different behaviors with respect to n, where n is the principal quantum number of the Rydberg electron. Namely, the BBR Stark shift asymptotically approaches a constant value given by a universal expression, whereas the BBR Zeeman shift grows as n4 due to the diamagnetic contribution. We show that for transitions between Rydberg states, where only the differential shift between levels is of concern, the BBR Zeeman shift can surpass the BBR Stark shift. We exemplify this in the context of a proposed experiment targeting a precise determination of the Rydberg constant.

Citation

Physical Review A

Pub Type

Journals

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https://doi.org/10.1103/m3rh-sdly

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Keywords

Zeeman shift, Rydberg atoms, blackbody radiation, diamagnetic

Citation

Beloy, K. , Hunt, B. , Brown, R. , Bothwell, T. , Hassan, Y. , Siegel, J. , Grogan, T. and Ludlow, A. (2025), Blackbody radiation Zeeman shift in Rydberg atoms, Physical Review A, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/m3rh-sdly, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959683 (Accessed October 13, 2025)