Signatures of Anderson localization in the ionization rates of periodically driven Rydberg states

Abstract

We provide a statistical characterization of the ionization yield of one-dimensional, periodically driven Rydberg states of atomic hydrogen, in the spirit of Anderson localization theory. We find excellent agreement with predictions for the conductance across an Anderson localized, quasi one-dimensional, disordered wire, in the semiclassical limit of highly excited atomic initial states. For the moderate atomic excitations typically encountered in state of the art laboratory experiments, finite-size effects induce significant deviations from the solid-state picture. However, large scale fluctuations of the atomic conductance prevail and are robust when averaged over a finite interval of driving field amplitudes, as inevitably done in the experiment.