-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] >Rydberg states of hydrogen atoms are dense (far denser than osmium for instance) and "long-lived" in one way of looking at the situation (compared to Muons or other exotica, for instance) but the so-called radiative lifetime of a circular Rydberg state, n = 100 is approximately 1 second, it seems.
RvS: "Rydberg states are large n states, which rapidly decay. They are not dense AFAIK." Well ... cough, cough ... did you read the article which was cited a few messages back? I would not want to argue that point with George Miley and associates, who claim that the density seen in their testing is ~ 10^29 atoms/cm. Here is the citation; and it is one of the most important papers in the last two years IMHO: "Ultrahigh-density deuterium of Rydberg matter clusters for inertial confinement fusion targets" L. Holmlid, H. Hora, G. Miley and X. Yang, Laser and Particle Beams 27 (2009) 529-532.
