Stark effect and field ionisation of atomic hydrogen

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Abstract
Perturbing a hydrogen atom with a static electric field is known to alter its spectrum drastically by transforming the bound states into continuum states and by introducing rich structure into the continuum. Because the rapid oscillations of the continuum wavefunctions make a direct numerical integration of the separated one-dimensional differential equations cumbersome, the authors use the non-linear amplitude-phase approach introduced by Milne (1930). Firstly, the resonance positions and widths of highly excited Rydberg states are presented. A quantitative theoretical interpretation of recent field ionisation experiments is then given.