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arXiv:0710.5622 · Physical Review Letters

Rydberg Excitation of Bose-Einstein Condensates

Rolf Heidemann, Ulrich Krohn, Vera Bendkowsky, Björn Butscher, Robert Löw, Tilman Pfau

Published Jan 22, 2008• 161 citations
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Abstract

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 temperatures above and below the condensation temperature. The excitation is locally blocked by the van der Waals interaction between Rydberg atoms to a density-dependent limit. Therefore, the abrupt change of the thermal atomic density distribution to the characteristic bimodal distribution upon condensation could be observed in the Rydberg fraction. The observed features are reproduced by a simulation based on local collective Rydberg excitations.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.100.033601

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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 temperatures above and below the condensation temperature. The excitation is locally blocked by the van der Waals interaction between Rydberg atoms to a density-dependent limit. Therefore, the abrupt change of the thermal atomic density distribution to the characteristic bimodal distribution upon condensation could be observed in the Rydberg fraction. The observed features are reproduced by a simulation based on local collective Rydberg excitations.
The excitation to high-lying Rydberg states is investigated in a sample of 87-Rb atoms undergoing the Bose-Einstein condensation phase transition, in the limit that the spatial dimensions of the condensed cloud are smaller than the (Wan-der-Waals) dipole blockade radius. We measure the number of excitations by single ion counting as a function of the dimensions of the condensed and thermal fraction. We observed a distinct decrease in the number of excitations due to the change of the atomic spatial density distribution, from the thermal cloud, through a bimodal distribution, to the condensed cloud. When only the condensed part is present, the average number of excitations measured levels off at around one which is compatible with having a single collective excitation in the condensed cloud.
The authors performed experiments on the coherent dynamics of Rydberg excitation in thermal clouds of87Rb for a wide range of atomic densities, single-atom Rabi-frequencies and excitation times in a specialized vacuum chamber. We further observed a clear signature of the phase transition to a Bose-Einstein condensate in the fraction of excited Rydberg atoms when cooling the thermal cloud below Tc. In our experiments the sample size is bigger than the so called blockade radius, which is defined as the interatomic distance where the interaction energy becomes equal to the power broadened linewidth of the excitation.
In the laser excitation of ultracold atoms to Rydberg states, we observe a dramatic suppression caused by van der Waals interactions. This behavior is interpreted as a local excitation blockade: Rydberg atoms strongly inhibit excitation of their neighbors. We measure suppression, relative to isolated atom excitation, by up to a factor of 6.4. The dependences of this suppression on both laser irradiance and atomic density are in good agreement with a mean-field model. These results are an important step towards using ultracold Rydberg atoms in quantum information processing.
Abstract In this work, we investigated a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) inside a Rydberg atom. We first observed the system’s density profile using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, and then we used the Bogoliubov theory to examine the collective excitation spectra. We have also extended our study by taking into account a hybrid of two BEC species. Again, for this new system, the density profile and the collective excitation are investigated in a similar manner. The results of the BEC for one species reveal that the Rydberg atom can trap the BEC and that the excitation curve moves upward with increasing Rydberg atom interaction. We have seen roton minima for two species of BEC, and the depth of the minima shifts with the Rydberg interaction.
We present a novel spectroscopic method for probing the \insitu~density of quantum gases. We exploit the density-dependent energy shift of highly excited {Rydberg} states, which is of the order 101010\MHz\,/\,1E14\,cm-3^{\text{-3}}-3 for \rubidium~for triplet s-wave scattering. The energy shift combined with a density gradient can be used to localize Rydberg atoms in density shells with a spatial resolution less than optical wavelengths, as demonstrated by scanning the excitation laser spatially across the density distribution. We use this Rydberg spectroscopy to measure the mean density addressed by the Rydberg excitation lasers, and to monitor the phase transition from a thermal gas to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).