Perturbation of the excited states of the hydrogen atom and hydrogen-like ions by a neutral atom

Owing to the degeneracy of the energy levels, the wavefunction of the electron in the excited states of the hydrogen atom and hydrogen-like ions perturbed by a neutral atom B is significantly different from the wavefunction of the unperturbed state. The perturbed function has a wide high maximum in the region of atom B, which is explained by multiple collisions of the electron with atom B, because the classical trajectories in the Coulomb field are closed and the size of atom B is much smaller than the size of the excited-state orbit. The radiative lifetimes of the excited states are much larger than those of unperturbed states. The orbital angular momentum L of the excited electron is strongly changed in collisions with atom B owing to the quantum interference or mixing of the temporal phases of adiabatic wavefunctions. The cross sections for such a change in the orbital angular momentum are several orders of magnitude larger than the cross sections found in early investigations in the approximation of the single collision of the electron with atom B.