Related papers: Correlated photon emission from multi--atom Rydber…
We develop an approach to generate finite-range atomic interactions via optical Rydberg-state excitation and study the underlying excitation dynamics in theory and experiment. In contrast to previous work, the proposed scheme is based on…
We propose a scheme that employs dissipation to deterministically generate entanglement in an ensemble of strongly interacting Rydberg atoms. With a combination of microwave driving between different Rydberg levels and a resonant laser…
Entangled photon pairs are key elements in quantum communication and quantum cryptography. State-of-the-art sources of entangled photons are mainly based on parametric down-conversion from nonlinear crystals, which is probabilistic in…
The realization of correlated multi-photon processes usually depends on the interaction between nonlinear media and atoms. However, the nonlinearity of optical materials is generally weak, making it still very challenging to achieve…
Resonant laser excitation of multiple Rydberg atoms are prohibited, leading to Rydberg blockade, when the long-range van der Waals interactions are stronger than the laser-atom coupling. Rydberg blockade can be violated, i.e. simultaneous…
We generalize the theoretical modeling of collective atomic super- and subradiance to the multilevel case including spontaneous emission from several excited states towards a common ground state. We show that in a closely packed ensemble of…
The dipole blockade between Rydberg atoms has been proposed as a basic tool in quantum information processing with neutral atoms. Here we demonstrate experimentally the Rydberg blockade of two individual atoms separated by 4 $\mu$m.…
The structure and photoexcitation dynamics of high lying doubly excited states of the strontium atom with high angular momenta are studied in the vicinity of the Sr$^+(N=5)$ threshold. The spectra recorded using resonant multiphoton…
We study the collective radiation properties of cold, trapped ensembles of atoms. We consider the high density regime with the mean interatomic distance being comparable to, or smaller than, the wavelength of the resonant optical radiation…
We present a theoretical framework to describe the collective emission of light by entangled atomic states. Our theory applies to the low excitation regime, where most of the atoms are initially in the ground state, and relies on a bosonic…
We demonstrate a cooperative optical non-linearity caused by dipolar interactions between Rydberg atoms in an ultra-cold atomic ensemble. By coupling a probe transition to the Rydberg state we map the strong dipole-dipole interactions…
The dipole-dipole interaction among ultra-cold Rydberg atoms is simulated. We examine a general interaction scheme in which two atoms excited to the x and x' states are converted to y and y' states via a Forster resonance. The atoms are…
By coupling a probe transition to a Rydberg state using electro-magnetically induced transparency (EIT) we map the strong dipole-dipole interactions onto an optical field. We characterize the resulting cooperative optical non-linearity as a…
We propose to couple single atomic qubits to photons incident on a cavity containing an atomic ensemble of a different species that mediates the coupling via Rydberg interactions. Subject to a classical field and the cavity field, the…
We study the impact of Rydberg molecule formation on the storage and retrieval of Rydberg polaritons in an ultracold atomic medium. We observe coherent revivals appearing in the retrieval efficiency of stored photons that originate from…
We show that nuclear motion of Rydberg atoms can be induced by resonant dipole-dipole interactions that trigger the energy transfer between two energetically close Rydberg states. How and if the atoms move depends on their initial…
Interfacing light and matter at the quantum level is at the heart of modern atomic and optical physics and enables new quantum technologies involving the manipulation of single photons and atoms. A prototypical atom-light interface is…
We study the dissipative propagation of quantized light in interacting Rydberg media under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Rydberg blockade physics in optically dense atomic media leads to strong…
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 propose a new method to create two-photon states in a controllable way using interaction between the Rydberg atoms during the storage and retrieval of slow light. A distinctive feature of the suggested procedure is that the slow light is…