Related papers: Atomic Rydberg Reservoirs for Polar Molecules
We observed elastic collisions between laser-cooled fermionic lithium atoms and calcium ions at the energy range from 100 mK to 3 K. Lithium atoms in an optical-dipole trap were transported to the center of the ion trap using an optical…
We consider the propagation of photons in a gas of Rydberg atoms under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency, where they form strongly interacting massive particles, termed Rydberg polaritons. Depending on the strength of…
We suggest a protocol for the sympathetic cooling of a molecular asymmetric top rotor co-trapped with laser-cooled atomic ions, based on resonant coupling between the molecular ion's electric dipole moment and a common normal mode of the…
Rydberg-atom ensembles are switched from a weakly- into a strongly-interacting regime via adiabatic transformation of the atoms from an approximately non-polar into a highly dipolar quantum state. The resultant electric dipole-dipole forces…
The dynamics of a cloud of ultra-cold two-level atoms is studied at off-resonant laser driving to a Rydberg state. We find that resonant excitation channels lead to strongly peaked spatial correlations associated with the buildup of…
A systematic study of the leading isotropic van der Waals coefficients for the alkali-metal atom + molecule and molecule + molecule systems is presented. Dipole moments and static and dynamic dipole polarizabilities are calculated employing…
Cold collisions between two Rydberg rubidium atoms ($^{87}$Rb) are investigated by controlling the impact parameter and collision energy. Optical tweezers are employed to hold one atom stationary while propelling the other to a constant…
We present a scheme to embed molecular anions in a gas of ultracold rubidium atoms as a route towards the preparation of cold molecular ions by collisional cooling with ultracold atoms. Associative detachment as an important loss process in…
The term `laser cooling' is applied to the use of optical means to cool the motional energies of either atoms and molecules, or micromirrors. In the literature, these two strands are kept largely separate; both, however suffer from severe…
We investigate dispersive optical nonlinearities that arise from Rydberg excitation blockade in cold Rydberg gases. We consider a two-photon transition scheme and study the non-linear response to a weak optical probe in presence of a strong…
We examine the potential-energy curves and polarization of the dipole moments of two static polar molecules under the influence of an external dc electric field and their anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction. We model the molecules as…
We propose a novel experimental method to extend the investigation of ion-atom collisions from the so far studied cold, essentially classical regime to the ultracold, quantum regime. Key aspect of this method is the use of Rydberg molecules…
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 investigate the ultracold collisions of rotationally excited dipolar molecules in free-space, taking the hetero-nuclear bi-alkali molecule of KRb as an example. We show that we can sharply tune the elastic, inelastic and reactive rate…
We consider cold polar molecules confined in a helical optical lattice similar to those used in holographic microfabrication. An external electric field polarizes molecules along the axis of the helix. The large-distance inter-molecular…
We simulate collisions between two atoms, which move in an optical lattice under the dipole-dipole interaction. The model describes simultaneously the two basic dynamical processes, namely the Sisyphus cooling of single atoms, and the…
Radiative emission during cold collisions between trapped laser-cooled Rb atoms and alkaline-earth ions (Ca$^+$, Sr$^+$, Ba$^+$) and Yb$^+$, and between Li and Yb$^+$, are studied theoretically, using accurate effective-core-potential based…
We present a formalism for rigorous calculations of cross sections for inelastic and reactive collisions of ultracold atoms and molecules confined by laser fields in quasi-2D geometry. Our results show that the elastic-to-inelastic ratios…
A novel supersolid phase is predicted for an ensemble of Rydberg atoms in the dipole-blockade regime, interacting via a repulsive dipolar potential "softened" at short distances. Using exact numerical techniques, we study the low…
We describe measurements demonstrating laser cooling of an atomic gas by means of collisional redistribution of radiation. The experiment uses rubidium atoms in the presence of several hundred bar of argon buffer gas pressure. Frequent…