Nonexponential decay law of the 2P-1S transition of the H-atom

Abstract

We evaluate numerically the survival probability $P(t)$ for the unstable 2P excited state of the hydrogen atom, which decays into the ground-state 1S emitting one photon ($\tau \sim 1.595$ ns), thus extending the analytic study of Facchi and Pascazio, Physics Letters A 241 (1998). To this end, we first determine the analytic expression of the spectral function of the unstable state, which allows for an accurate evaluation of $P(t)$. As expected, for short and long times $P(t)$ shows deviations from the exponential law: a `Zeno' region occurs at extremely short times (up to $\sim 0.3$ attosec, followed by a longer `anti-Zeno' domain (up to $\sim 50$ attosec); at long times above $125 \tau$, the decay law scales as $t^{-4}$.