Many-electron system on helium and the color center spectroscopy

Abstract

Electrons on the helium surface display sharp resonant absorption lines related to the transitions between the subbands of quantized motion transverse to the surface. A magnetic field parallel to the surface strongly affects the absorption spectrum. We show that the effect comes from admixing the out-of-plane motion to the in-plane quantum dynamics of the strongly correlated electron liquid or a Wigner crystal. This is similar to the admixing electron transitions in color centers to phonons. The spectrum permits a direct characterization of the many-electron dynamics and also enables testing the theory of color centers in a system with a controllable coupling.