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arXiv:0902.2877 · Physical Review A

Exploiting the composite character of Rydberg atoms for cold-atom trapping

Michael Mayle, Igor Lesanovsky, Peter Schmelcher

Published Apr 21, 2009• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

By investigating the quantum properties of magnetically trapped $n{S}_{1/2}$ Rydberg atoms, it is demonstrated that the composite nature of Rydberg atoms significantly alters their trapping properties opposed to pointlike particles with the same magnetic moment. We show how the specific signatures of the Rydberg trapping potential can be probed by means of ground-state atoms that are off-resonantly coupled to the Rydberg state via a two photon laser transition. In addition, it is demonstrated how this approach provides an alternative possibility of generating traps for ground-state atoms. Simulated time-of-flight pictures mirroring the experimental situation are provided.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.041403

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By investigating the quantum properties of magnetically trapped nS1/2n{S}_{1/2}nS1/2​ Rydberg atoms, it is demonstrated that the composite nature of Rydberg atoms significantly alters their trapping properties opposed to pointlike particles with the same magnetic moment. We show how the specific signatures of the Rydberg trapping potential can be probed by means of ground-state atoms that are off-resonantly coupled to the Rydberg state via a two photon laser transition. In addition, it is demonstrated how this approach provides an alternative possibility of generating traps for ground-state atoms. Simulated time-of-flight pictures mirroring the experimental situation are provided.
We theoretically investigate the quantum properties of nSnSnS, nPnPnP, and nDnDnD Rydberg atoms in a magnetic Ioffe-Pritchard trap. In particular, it is demonstrated that the two-body character of Rydberg atoms significantly alters the trapping properties opposed to pointlike particles with identical magnetic moment. Approximate analytical expressions describing the resulting Rydberg trapping potentials are derived and their validity is confirmed for experimentally relevant field strengths by comparisons to numerical solutions of the underlying Schr\"odinger equation. In addition to the electronic properties, the center-of-mass dynamics of trapped Rydberg atoms is studied. In particular, we analyze the influence of a short-time Rydberg excitation, as required by certain quantum-information protocols, on the center-of-mass dynamics of trapped ground-state atoms. A corresponding heating rate is derived and the implications for the purity of the density matrix of an encoded qubit are investigated.
We explore how the extraordinary properties of Rydberg atoms can be employed to impact the motion of ultracold ground state atoms. Specifically, we use an off-resonant two-photon laser dressing to map features of the Rydberg states on ground state atoms. It is demonstrated that the interplay between the spatially varying quantization axis of the considered Ioffe–Pritchard field and the fixed polarizations of the laser transitions provides the possibility of substantially manipulating the ground state trapping potential.
Cold circular Rydberg atoms are produced and magnetically trapped. The trap is characterized by direct spatial imaging of ion distributions, ion counting, and state-selective field ionization. At room temperature, we observe about 70% of the trapped atoms remaining after 6 ms. We measure a trap oscillation frequency increase of the circular Rydberg atom trap relative to the ground-state atom trap due to the larger magnetic moment of the circular Rydberg atoms. Simulations of the center-of-mass and internal-state evolution of circular states in our magnetic trap are performed and results are in good agreement with experimental observations.
We report on the trapping of long-lived strongly magnetized Rydberg atoms. 85Rb atoms are laser cooled and collected in a superconducting magnetic trap with a strong bias field (2.9 T) and laser excited to Rydberg states. Collisions scatter a small fraction of the Rydberg atoms into long-lived high-angular momentum "guiding-center" Rydberg states, which are magnetically trapped. The Rydberg atomic cloud is examined using a time-delayed, position-sensitive probe. We observe magnetic trapping of these Rydberg atoms for times up to 200 ms. Oscillations of the Rydberg-atom cloud in the trap reveal an average magnetic moment of the trapped Rydberg atoms of approximately -8microB. These results provide guidance for other Rydberg-atom trapping schemes and illuminate a possible route for trapping antihydrogen.
In this dissertation I investigate cold Rydberg atoms and molecules in which the angular-momentum character of the quantum states involved strongly influences their properties and dynamics. In the first part I focus on long-range diatomic Rydberg molecules formed by a rubidium D-state Rydberg atom and a second rubidium atom in its ground state. Spectroscopic measurements of molecular binding energies are presented showing the effect of the Rydberg atom size and fine-structure coupling on the molecular potentials. A theoretical model is introduced that takes into account all relevant angular-momentum couplings between the molecular constituents, successfully reproducing experimental observations. Calculations of adiabatic potentials and binding energies, molecular-state lifetimes, electric and magnetic dipole moments are also presented. In the second part, I describe the production and magnetic trapping of cold circular Rydberg atoms. The circular Rydberg atoms are generated out of a cold gas of rubidium using the crossed-fields method and magnetically trapped. The trapping force is employed to induce center-of-mass oscillations of the trapped atom sample. Trap parameters and observed oscillation frequencies are used to measure the magnetic moments of the circular Rydberg atoms. Trap losses and the atomic internal-state evolution in the 300 Kelvin thermal background are also investigated.
On one side, atom-chip experiments have demonstrated to be a versatile tool to study quantum physics in cold atoms systems. On the other side, Rydberg atoms have exaggerated properties that makes them good candidates to study quantum information and quantum simulations protocols. In this thesis both system are put together with the aim to study Rydberg physics (in particular atom-atom interaction) in an atom-chip experiment. Due to the exaggerated properties of Rydberg atoms they are very sensitive to electric fields. Thus, the combination of Rydberg atoms with surfaces can be challenging. Therefore a detailed characterization of the mentioned stray electric fields via the analysis of Stark-Zeeman maps is crucial. We employ two-photon Rydberg Stark spectroscopy of a micron-sized cloud of magnetically trapped ultracold rubidium atoms to characterize the electric fields near our atom-chip. Once we characterized the local electric fields we were able to study in more detail the effect of Rydberg excitation in the ultracold cloud of atoms. For instance we observed the formation of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules in our system. In these molecules a ground state atom is weakly bound to the Rydberg electron. We also attempted to observe the effect of Rydberg blockade in the system by looking at the characteristics of Rydberg spectra. Finally we studied the possibility of inducing rf transitions within a Rydberg state manifold in order to enhance our detection method and populate states that are not accessible directly with a two-photon laser transition.