Related papers: Cooperative non-equilibrium phase transition in a …
We propose a hybrid optomechanical quantum system consisting of a moving membrane strongly coupled to an ensemble of N atoms with a Rydberg state. Due to the strong van-der-Waals interaction between the atoms, the ensemble forms an…
We show that the dynamics of a laser driven Rydberg gas in the limit of strong dephasing is described by a master equation with manifest kinetic constraints. The equilibrium state of the system is uncorrelated but the constraints in the…
We show that very large nonlocal nonlinear interactions between pairs of colliding slow-light pulses can be realized in atomic vapors in the regime of electromagnetically induced transparency. These nonlinearities are mediated by strong,…
Driven particle transport in crowded and confining environments is fundamental to diverse phenomena across physics, chemistry, and biology. A main objective in studying such systems is to identify novel emergent states and phases of…
The Dicke model consisting of an ensemble of two-state atoms interacting with a single quantized mode of the electromagnetic field exhibits a zero-temperature phase transition at a critical value of the dipole coupling strength. We propose…
We report the sudden and spontaneous evolution of an initially correlated gas of repulsively interacting Rydberg atoms to an ultracold plasma. Under continuous laser coupling we create a Rydberg ensemble in the strong blockade regime, which…
Double-resonant photoexcitation of nitric oxide in a molecular beam creates a dense ensemble of $50f(2)$ Rydberg states, which evolves to form a plasma of free electrons trapped in the potential well of an NO$^+$ spacecharge. The plasma…
The excitation dynamics of a laser-driven Rydberg gas exhibits a cooperative effect due to the interatomic Rydberg-Rydberg interaction, but the large many-body system with inhomogeneous Rydberg coupling is hard to exactly solved or…
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 study two-photon excitation of Rydberg states of atoms under stimulated adiabatic passage with delayed laser pulses. We find that the combination of strong interaction between the atoms in Rydberg state and the spontaneous decay of the…
We observe synchronisation in a thermal (35-60 {\deg}C) atomic (Rb) ensemble driven to a highly-excited Rydberg state (principle quantum number n ranging from 43 to 79). Synchronisation in this system is unexpected due to the atomic motion,…
We show a dissipative phase transition in a driven nonlinear quantum oscillator in which a discrete time-translation symmetry is spontaneously broken in two different ways. The corresponding regimes display either discrete or incommensurate…
We use the technique of electro-magnetically induced transparency (EIT) to probe the effect of attractive dipole-dipole interactions in a highly excited Rydberg gas. The transient character of the EIT response is investigated by rapidly…
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…
We study the emergence of many-body correlations in the stationary state of continuously-driven, strongly-interacting dissipative system. Specifically, we examine resonant optical excitations of Rydberg states of atoms interacting via…
We consider a hybrid quantum many-body system formed by both a vibrational mode of a nanomembrane, which interacts optomechanically with light in a cavity, and an ultracold atom gas in the optical lattice of the out-coupled light. After…
By holographic duality, we identify a novel dynamical phase transition which results from the temperature dependence of non-equilibrium dynamics of dark solitons in a superfluid.For a non-equilibrium superfluid system with an initial…
Resonant electric dipole-dipole interactions between cold Rydberg atoms were observed using microwave spectroscopy. Laser-cooled Rb atoms in a magneto-optical trap were optically excited to 45d Rydberg states using a pulsed laser. A…
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…
The physics of critical phenomena in a many-body system far from thermal equilibrium is an interesting and important issue to be addressed both experimentally and theoretically. The trapped cold atoms have been actively used as a clean and…