Related papers: Threading an atom with light
Highly excited Rydberg states are usually extremely polarizable and exceedingly sensitive to electric fields. Because of this Rydberg ions confined in electric fields have state-dependent trapping potentials. We engineer a Rydberg state…
We demonstrate the excitation of ions to the Rydberg state $22F$ by vacuum ultraviolet radiation at a wavelength of $123\,\text{nm}$ combined with the coherent manipulation of the optical qubit transition in $^{40}\text{Ca}^+$. With a…
We introduce a scheme to entangle Rydberg ions in a linear ion crystal, using the high electric polarizability of the Rydberg electronic states in combination with mutual Coulomb coupling of ions that establishes common modes of motion.…
Over the past few years we have built an apparatus to demonstrate the entanglement of neutral Rb atoms at optically resolvable distances using the strong interactions between Rydberg atoms. Here we review the basic physics involved in this…
We propose an efficient method to filter out single atoms from trapped ensembles with unknown number of atoms. The method employs stimulated adiabatic passage to reversibly transfer a single atom to the Rydberg state which blocks subsequent…
Neutral-atom quantum simulation is susceptible to entanglement between the atom's internal electronic state and its center-of-mass position. In many alkali Rydberg platforms, the 'spin-motion coupling' is exacerbated by the free expansion…
Neutral atom qubits with Rydberg-mediated interactions are a leading platform for developing large-scale coherent quantum systems. In the majority of experiments to date, the Rydberg states are not trapped by the same potential that…
We demonstrate excitation of a single trapped cold $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ion to Rydberg levels by laser radiation in the vacuum-ultraviolet at 122 nm wavelength. Observed resonances are identified as 3d$^2$D$_{3/2}$ to 51 F, 52 F and…
We study two ions confined in a Penning trap. We show that electronically highly excited states exist in which an electron is delocalized among the two ions forming a giant molecule of several micrometer size. At energies close to the top…
We theoretically investigate the manipulation of the motional states of trapped ground-state atoms using Rydberg dressing via nonresonant laser fields. The forces resulting from Rydberg-state interaction between dressed neighboring atoms in…
Stability achieved by large angular momentum is ubiquitous in nature, with examples ranging from classical mechanics, over optics and chemistry, to nuclear physics. In atoms, angular momentum can protect excited electronic orbitals from…
We describe a simple mechanical system that operates as a ponderomotive particle trap, consisting of a circular hoop and a frictionless bead, with the hoop rotating about a horizontal axis lying in the plane of the hoop. The bead in the…
Circular Rydberg atoms (CRAs), i.e., Rydberg atoms with maximal orbital momentum, ideally combine long coherence times and strong interactions, a key property of quantum systems, in particular for the development of quantum technologies.…
We present a method for measuring the polarizability of Rydberg ions confined in the harmonic potential of a Paul trap. For a highly excited electronic state, the coupling between the electronic wave function and the trapping field modifies…
Rydberg atoms in dc electric fields acquire static dipole moments. When the atoms are close to a surface producing an inhomogeneous electric field, such as by the adsorbates on an atom chip, depending on the sign of the dipole moment of the…
Trapped Rydberg ions are a promising novel approach to quantum computing and simulations. They are envisaged to combine the exquisite control of trapped ion qubits with the fast two-qubit Rydberg gates already demonstrated in neutral atom…
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 the ability to excite atoms at well-defined, programmable locations in a magneto-optical trap, either to the continuum (ionisation), or to a Rydberg state. To this end, excitation laser light is shaped into arbitrary…
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…
In a neutral atom quantum computer, the qubits are individual neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers. Excitations to Rydberg states form the basis for the entanglement procedure that is at the basis of multi-qubit quantum gates. However,…