Professor Sandner will launch an experimental investigation of one of the most fundamental and important problems in atomic- physics: the three-body Coulomb problem. He will excite the two outer electrons of alkaline earth atoms to very high- lying Rydberg states so as to produce a positively charged core interacting with two negatively charged electrons. The atomic spectroscopy of these double excited states will be used to interpret the motion of the three-particle Coulomb interactions.
