Lifetime control in Rydberg states. An application to the autoionizing series below the 2P1/2 ionization limit of xenon

The external electric field switching technique is applied to the autoionizing Rydberg states of xenon which produces highly stable long-lived ZEKE states. The experiment illustrates that the enhancement process occurs via an externally induced ℓ-locking mechanism with additional background perturbations of the ℓ-locked states. The enhancement for this atomic system is observed in the absence of channel interactions. Still, even in this worst case, ZEKE states are readily produced.