9415505 Leventhal This three-year award will support student participation in U.S.- Italy cooperative research in chaos in atomic systems between Jacob Leventhal of the University of Missouri - Saint Louis, and Professors Maria Allegrini and Ennio Arimondo at the University of Pisa, Italy. The focus of the research will be on examining the responses of specially prepared atoms, Rydberg atoms, to alternating electric fields from the perspective of modern conceptions of transitions of physical systems from ordered to chaotic motion. The U.S. side of the collaboration brings expertise in experimental methods focusing on exploitation of the unique properties of Rydberg atoms in a variety of applications. This is complemented by the Italian collaborators' studies of transitions to chaotic behavior and their expertise in experimental atomic physics. They have worked with infrared lasers, and have designed the line selectable carbon dioxide laser crucial to the method of these experiments. ***
