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arXiv:0711.0401 · Physical Review Letters

Rabi Oscillations between Ground and Rydberg States with Dipole-Dipole Atomic Interactions

Tomiwa Ayobami Johnson, Erik Urban, Thomas Henage, L. Isenhower, Deniz D. Yavuz, Thad G Walker, Mark E. Saffman

Published Mar 19, 2008• 186 citations
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Abstract

We demonstrate Rabi oscillations of small numbers of 87Rb atoms between ground and Rydberg states with n< or =43. Coherent population oscillations are observed for single atoms, while the presence of two or more atoms decoheres the oscillations. We show that these observations are consistent with van der Waals interactions of Rydberg atoms.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.100.113003

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We demonstrate Rabi oscillations of small numbers of 87Rb atoms between ground and Rydberg states with n< or =43. Coherent population oscillations are observed for single atoms, while the presence of two or more atoms decoheres the oscillations. We show that these observations are consistent with van der Waals interactions of Rydberg atoms.
We present a detailed analysis of our recent observation of synchronous Rabi oscillations between the electronic ground state and Rydberg states in a mesoscopic ensemble containing roughly 100 ultracold atoms (Reetz-Lamour et al submitted, Preprint 0711.4321). The mesoscopic cloud is selected out of a sample of laser-cooled Rb atoms by optical pumping. The atoms are coupled to a Rydberg state with principal quantum number around 30 by a two-photon scheme employing flat-top laser beams. The influence of residual spatial intensity fluctuations as well as sources of decoherence such as redistribution to other states, radiative lifetime and laser bandwidth are analysed. The results open up new possibilities for the investigation of coherent many-body phenomena in dipolar Rydberg gases. As an example we demonstrate the van der Waals blockade, a variant of the dipole blockade, for a mesoscopic atom sample.
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We report the direct measurement of the van der Waals interaction between two isolated, single Rydberg atoms separated by a controlled distance of a few micrometers. Working in a regime where the single-atom Rabi frequency for excitation to the Rydberg state is comparable to the interaction, we observe partial Rydberg blockade, whereby the time-dependent populations of the various two-atom states exhibit coherent oscillations with several frequencies. Quantitative comparison of the data with a simple model based on the optical Bloch equations allows us to extract the van der Waals energy, and observe its characteristic C6/R6 dependence. The measured C6 coefficients agree well with ab initio calculations, and we observe their dramatic increase with the principal quantum number n of the Rydberg state.
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