Related papers: Ultralong-range polyatomic Rydberg molecules forme…
Controlling strongly interacting many-body systems enables the creation of tailored quantum matter, with properties transcending those based solely on single particle physics. Atomic ensembles which are optically driven to a Rydberg state…
The theory is developed for one and two atom interactions when the atom has a Rydberg electron attached to a hyperfine split core state. This situation is relevant for some of the rare earth and alkaline earth atoms that have been proposed…
We analyze in detail the possibility to use charge-dipole interaction between a single polar molecule or a 1D molecular array and a single Rydberg atom to read out rotational populations. The change in the Rydberg electron energy is…
We report the engineering of molecular potentials at large interatomic distances. The molecular states are generated by off-resonant optical coupling to a highly excited, long-range Rydberg molecular potential. The coupling produces a…
The coupling of an isolated quantum state to a continuum is typically associated with decoherence and decreased lifetime. Here, we demonstrate that Rydberg macrodimers, weakly bound pairs of Rydberg atoms, can overcome this dissipative…
The presence of electric or microwave fields can modify the long-range forces between ultracold dipolar molecules in such a way as to engineer weakly-bound states of molecule pairs. These so-called field-linked states [Avdeenkov et al.,…
Alkaline earth Rydberg atoms are very promising tools for quantum technologies. Their highly excited outer electron provides them with the remarkable properties of Rydberg atoms and, notably, with a huge coupling to external fields or to…
We propose and analyze a new scheme to produce ultracold neutral plasmas deep in the strongly coupled regime. The method exploits the interaction blockade between cold atoms excited to high-lying Rydberg states and therefore does not…
We show that the electric dipole-dipole interaction between a pair of polar molecules undergoes an all-out transformation when superimposed by a far-off resonant optical field. The combined interaction potential becomes tunable by variation…
We report on the observation of highly excited ($\nu \sim 100)$ vibrational states of a trilobite ultralong-range Rydberg molecule in $^{87}$Rb. These states manifest spectroscopically in a regularly spaced series of peaks red-detuned from…
We describe a method for controlling many-body states in extended ensembles of Rydberg atoms, forming crystalline structures during laser excitation of a frozen atomic gas. Specifically, we predict the existence of an excitation number…
We report the observation of cold Cs Rydberg atom molecules bound at internuclear separations of R~3-9 um. The bound states result from avoided crossings between Rydberg atom pair interaction potentials in an applied electric field. The…
We review here the studies performed about interactions in an assembly of cold Rydberg atoms. We focus more specially the review on the dipole-dipole interactions and on the effect of the dipole blockade in the laser Rydberg excitation,…
Laser cooling and trapping of atomic matter waves in optical potentials has enabled rapid progress in quantum science, particularly when combined with Rydberg excitation of the atoms to induce long-range interactions. Here, we propose the…
We report spectroscopic observation of Rydberg polarons in an atomic Bose gas. Polarons are created by excitation of Rydberg atoms as impurities in a strontium Bose-Einstein condensate. They are distinguished from previously studied…
Atoms with a highly excited electron, called Rydberg atoms, can form unusual types of molecular bonds. The bond differs from the well known ionic and covalent bonds not only by its binding mechanism, but also by its bond length ranging up…
Strong interactions can amplify quantum effects such that they become important on macroscopic scales. Controlling these coherently on a single particle level is essential for the tailored preparation of strongly correlated quantum systems…
We have studied the behavior of cold Rydberg atoms embedded in an ultracold plasma. We demonstrate that even deeply bound Rydberg atoms are completely ionized in such an environment, due to electron collisions. Using a fast pulse extraction…
We explore one-dimensional (1-D) samples of ultracold polar molecules with attractive dipole-dipole interactions and show the existence of a repulsive barrier due to a strong quadrupole interaction between molecules. This barrier can…
We show that the dipole-dipole interaction between two Rydberg atoms can give rise to long range molecules. The binding potential arises from two states that converge to different separated atom asymptotes. These states interact weakly at…