  We have developed a quite stringent method in selectivity to ionize the low
angular- momentum ($\ell$) states which lie below and above the adjacent
manifold in highly excited Rb Rydberg atoms. The method fully exploits the
pulsed field-ionization characteristics of the manifold states in high
slew-rate regime: Specifically the low $\ell$ state below (above) the adjacent
manifold is firstly transferred to the lowest (highest) state in the manifold
via the adiabatic transition at the first avoided crossing in low slew-rate
regime, and then the atoms are driven to a high electric field for ionization
in high slew-rate regime. These extreme states of the manifold are ionized at
quite different fields due to the tunneling process, resulting in thus the
stringent selectivity. Two manipulation schemes to realize this method actually
are demonstrated here experimentally.
