Polarization transfer and relaxation induced in collisions of excited alkali atoms

We present an approximate theory of intramultiplet mixing, relaxation, and polarization transfer in excited alkali atoms, valid for all magnitudes of the fine-structure splitting. The theory is developed as the generalization of the previously postulated theory of fine-structure mixing induced in adiabatic and quasiresonant collisions. In the adiabatic region, the theory predicts a change in the sign of the coefficient for polarization transfer between the components j = 1/2 and,j = 3/2 of the 2P resonance doublet, as the Massey parameter for this transition changes.