Related papers: Radiation trapping in a dense cold Rydberg gas
We study atoms in optical lattices whose electronic ground state is off-resonantly coupled to a highly excited state with strong binary interactions. We present a time-dependent treatment of the resulting quantum dynamics, which -- contrary…
Rydberg atoms provide a wide range of possibilities to tailor interactions in a quantum gas. Here we report on Rydberg excitation of Bose-Einstein condensed 87Rb atoms. The Rydberg fraction was investigated for various excitation times and…
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…
We provide a detailed theoretical and conceptual study of a planned experiment to excite Rydberg states of ions trapped in a Paul trap. The ultimate goal is to exploit the strong state dependent interactions between Rydberg ions to…
We study the quantum properties of Rydberg atoms in a magnetic Ioffe-Pritchard trap which is superimposed by a homogeneous electric field. Trapped Rydberg atoms can be created in long-lived electronic states exhibiting a permanent electric…
We demonstrate the phenomenon of blockade in two-photon excitations to the Rydberg state in thermal vapor. A technique based on optical heterodyne is used to measure the dispersion of a probe beam far off resonant to the D2 line of rubidium…
Optically trapped Rydberg atoms are a suitable platform to explore quantum many-body physics mediated by long-range atom--atom interactions that can be engineered through externally applied light fields. However, this approach is limited to…
Trapped Rydberg atoms are highly promising candidates for quantum science experiments. While several approaches have been put forward to exert (trapping) forces on isolated Rydberg atoms, a widely applicable lossless technique is lacking.…
The Rydberg excitation blockade has been at the heart of an impressive array of recent achievements; however, state-mixing interactions can compromise its efficiency. When ultracold atoms are excited to Rydberg states near F\"orster…
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 resonant optical excitations of atoms in a one-dimensional lattice to the Rydberg states interacting via the van der Waals potential which suppresses simultaneous excitation of neighboring atoms. Considering two- and three-level…
We address the technical challenges when performing quantum information experiments with ultracold Rydberg atoms in lattice geometries. We discuss the following key aspects: (i) The coherent manipulation of atomic ground states, (ii) the…
We present the experimental observation of the antiblockade in an ultracold Rydberg gas recently proposed by Ates et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 023002 (2007)]. Our approach allows the control of the pair distribution in the gas and is based…
We investigate the collective aspects of Rydberg excitation in ultracold mesoscopic systems. Strong interactions between Rydberg atoms influence the excitation process and impose correlations between excited atoms. The manifestations of the…
We present experimental results on the controlled de-excitation of Rydberg states in a cold gas of Rb atoms. The effect of the van der Waals interactions between the Rydberg atoms is clearly seen in the de-excitation spectrum and dynamics.…
Quantum reflection is a pure wave phenomena that predicts reflection of a particle at a changing potential for cases where complete transmission occurs classically. For a chemical bond, we find that this effect can lead to non-classical…
We investigate the collective excitation effect in a scheme where three identical Rydberg atoms are arranged in an equilateral triangular lattice. By using a static electric field polarizing the atomic dipoles, the dipole-dipole…
We present an overview of our recent investigations of long-range interactions in an ultracold Cs Rydberg gas. These interactions are studied by high-resolution photoassociation spectroscopy, using excitation close to one-photon transitions…
We present photo-excitation of ultra-long-range Rydberg molecules as a probe of spatial correlations in quantum gases. Rydberg molecules can be created with well-defined internuclear spacing, set by the radius of the outer lobe of the…
We present the experimental demonstration of interaction induced enhancement in Rydberg excitation or Rydberg anti-blockade in thermal atomic vapor. We have used optical heterodyne detection technique to measure Rydberg population due to…