Systematic observation of tunneling field-ionization in highly excited Rb Rydberg atoms

Pulsed field ionization of high-$n$ (90 $leq n leq$ 150) manifold states in Rb Rydberg atoms has been investigated in high slew-rate regime. Two peaks in the field ionization spectra were systematically observed for the investigated $n$ region, where the field values at the lower peak do not almost depend on the excitation energy in the manifold, while those at the higher peak increase with increasing excitation energy. The fraction of the higher peak component to the total ionization signals increases with increasing $n$, exceeding 80% at $n$ = 147. Characteristic behavior of the peak component and the comparison with theoretical predictions indicate that the higher peak component is due to the tunneling process. The obtained results show for the first time that the tunneling process plays increasingly the dominant role at such highly excited nonhydrogenic Rydberg atoms.