Driven Rydberg Atoms Reveal Quartic Level Repulsion

The dynamics of Rydberg states of a hydrogen atom subjected simultaneously to uniform static electric field and two microwave fields with commensurate frequencies is considered in the range of small field amplitudes. In the certain range of the parameters of the system the classical secular motion of the electronic ellipse reveals chaotic behavior. Quantum mechanically, when the fine structure of the atom is taken into account, the energy level statistics obey predictions appropriate for the symplectic Gaussian random matrix ensemble.