Ghost orbits in the diamagnetic hydrogen spectrum using harmonic inversion

Abstract

The harmonic inversion method is applied in the case of the hydrogen atom in a magnetic field to extract classical information from the quantum photo-ionization cross-section. The study is made close to a saddle-node bifurcation for which the usual semi-classical formulas give diverging contributions. All quantities (actions, stabilities and Maslov indices) for real orbits above the bifurcation and for complex ghost orbits below the bifurcation, are found to be in excellent agreement with the modified semi-classical predictions based on a normal form approach.