Double excitations of helium in weak static electric fields

A dramatic electric field dependence has been observed in the fluorescence yield spectrum of the doubly excited states in helium, where a rich phenomenology is encountered below the N=2 threshold. Fluorescence yields of certain states can be tuned to zero, while other dipole-forbidden states are significantly enhanced, for fields much weaker than 1kV/cm. Using an R-matrix multichannel quantum defect theory, spherical-to-parabolic frame transformation method, we are able to reproduce the main features of the observed spectrum, and we discuss the qualitative behavior in terms of weak electric field mixing. © 2006 The American Physical Society.