Related papers: Hybridization of Rydberg electron orbitals by mole…
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 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…
We present experimental evidence for spin-orbit interaction of an electron as it scatters from a neutral atom. The scattering process takes place within a Rb$_2$ ultralong-range Rydberg molecule, consisting of a Rydberg atomic core, a…
We show that the recently observed class of long-range ion-Rydberg molecules can be divided into two families of states, which are characterised by their unique electronic structures resulting from the ion-induced admixture of quantum…
Obtaining full control over the internal and external quantum states of molecules is the central goal of ultracold chemistry and allows for the study of coherent molecular dynamics, collisions and tests of fundamental laws of physics. When…
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 propose an experiment to demonstrate a novel blockade mechanism caused by long-range anisotropic interactions in an ultracold dipolar gas composed of the recently observed "butterfly" Rydberg molecules. At the blockade radius, the strong…
Long-range Rydberg molecules are typically bound in wells formed in their oscillatory potential energy curves. In alkaline Rydberg molecules, bound vibrational states exist even when these potential wells are disrupted by level repulsion…
We report the creation of ultralong-range Sr$_2$ molecules comprising one ground-state $5s^2$ $^1S_0$ atom and one atom in a $5sns$ $^3S_1$ Rydberg state for $n$ ranging from 29 to 36. Molecules are created in a trapped ultracold atomic gas…
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 investigate the structure and features of an ultralong-range triatomic Rydberg molecule formed by a Rb Rydberg atom and a KRb diatomic molecule. In our numerical description, we perform a realistic treatment of the internal rotational…
We study the long-range interaction of a single ion with a highly excited ultracold Rydberg atom and report on the direct observation of ion-induced Rydberg excitation blockade mediated over tens of micrometer distances. Our hybrid ion-atom…
We report on a novel method for photo-association of strongly polar trilobite Rydberg molecules. This exotic ultralong-range dimer, consisting of a ground-state atom bound to the Rydberg electron via electron-neutral scattering, inherits…
Rydberg atoms, with their giant electronic orbitals, exhibit dipole-dipole interaction reaching the GHz range at a distance of a micron, making them a prominent contender for realizing quantum operations well within their coherence time.…
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 have performed high resolution photoassociation spectroscopy of rubidium ultra long-range Rydberg molecules in the vicinity of the 25$P$ state. Due to the hyperfine interaction in the ground state perturber atom, the emerging mixed…
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 investigate a possible mechanism for the autoionization of ultracold Rydberg gases, based on the resonant coupling of Rydberg pair states to the ionization continuum. Unlike an atomic collision where the wave functions begin to overlap,…
Ultralong-range Rydberg molecules provide an exciting testbed for molecular physics at exaggerated scales. In the so-called trilobite and butterfly Rydberg molecules, the Born-Oppenheimer approximation can fail due to strong non-adiabatic…
We investigate the electronic structure and properties of Rydberg atoms exposed to a magnetic quadrupole field. It is shown that the spatial as well as generalized time reversal symmetries lead to a two-fold degeneracy of the electronic…