Related papers: Driven-dissipative dynamics of a strongly interact…
We discuss techniques to generate long-range interactions in a gas of groundstate alkali atoms, by weakly admixing excited Rydberg states with laser light. This provides a tool to engineer strongly correlated phases with reduced decoherence…
We discuss laser dressed dipolar and Van der Waals interactions between atoms and polar molecules, so that a cold atomic gas with laser admixed Rydberg levels acts as a designed reservoir for both elastic and inelastic collisional…
Coherently manipulating Rydberg atoms in mesoscopic systems has proven challenging due to the unwanted population of nearby Rydberg levels by black-body radiation. Recently, there have been some efforts towards understanding these effects…
In dense atomic gases the interaction between transition dipoles and photons leads to the formation of many-body states with collective dissipation and long-ranged forces. Despite decades of research, a full understanding of this…
Assemblies of highly excited Rydberg atoms in an ultracold gas can be set into motion by a combination of van-der-Waals and resonant dipole-dipole interactions. Thereby, the collective electronic Rydberg state might change due to…
When atoms are excited to high-lying Rydberg states they interact strongly with dipolar forces. The resulting state-dependent level shifts allow to study many-body systems displaying intriguing nonequilibrium phenomena, such as constrained…
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…
The laser-excitation of Rydberg atoms in ultracold gases is often described assuming that the atomic motion is frozen during the excitation time. We show that this frozen gas approximation can break down for atoms that are held in optical…
Competing short- and long-range interactions represent distinguished ingredients for the formation of complex quantum many-body phases. Their study is hard to realize with conventional quantum simulators. In this regard, Rydberg atoms…
We present time-resolved spectroscopic measurements of Rydberg-Rydberg interactions in an ultracold gas, revealing the pair dynamics induced by long-range van der Waals interactions between the atoms. By detuning the excitation laser, a…
Recent developments in the study of ultracold Rydberg gases demand an advanced level of experimental sophistication, in which high atomic and optical densities must be combined with excellent control of external fields and sensitive Rydberg…
In a recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 023004 (2007)] we have investigated the influence of attractive van der Waals interaction on the pair distribution and Penning ionization dynamics of ultracold Rydberg gases. Here we extend this…
The ability to control and tune interactions in ultracold atomic gases has paved the way towards the realization of new phases of matter. Whereas experiments have so far achieved a high degree of control over short-ranged interactions, the…
While dissipative Rydberg gases exhibit unique possibilities to tune dissipation and interaction properties, very little is known about the quantum many-body physics of such long-range interacting open quantum systems. We theoretically…
We describe the emergence of strong spatial correlations, akin to liquid-like behavior and crystallization effects, in low (one and two) dimensional gases of cold Rydberg atoms. The presence of an external electric field permanently…
We describe the dynamical preparation of anisotropic crystalline phases obtained by laser-exciting ultracold Alkali atoms to Rydberg p-states where they interact via anisotropic van der Waals interactions. We develop a time- dependent…
In the last twenty years, Rydberg atoms have become a versatile and much studied system for implementing quantum many-body systems in the framework of quantum computation and quantum simulation. However, even in the absence of coherent…
We investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of a driven-dissipative spin ensemble with competing power-law interactions. We demonstrate that dynamical phase transitions as well as bistabilities can emerge for asymptotic van der Waals…
We demonstrate a non-equilibrium phase transition in a dilute thermal atomic gas. The phase transition, between states of low and high Rydberg occupancy, is induced by resonant dipole-dipole interactions between Rydberg atoms. The gas can…
We theoretically analyze the interactions and decay rates for atoms dressed by multiple laser fields to strongly interacting Rydberg states using a quantum master equation approach. In this framework a comparison of two-level and…