We investigate resonant dipole-dipole interactions between two superatoms of different angular momentum, consisting of two Rydberg-blockaded atom clouds where each cloud carries initially a coherently shared single excitation. We demonstrate that the dipole-dipole interaction breaks up the superatoms by removing the excitations from the clouds. The dynamics is akin to an ensemble average over systems where only one atom per cloud participates in entangled motion and excitation transfer. Our findings should thus facilitate the experimental realization of adiabatic exciton transport in Rydberg systems by replacing single sites with atom clouds.
We investigate resonant dipole-dipole interactions between two superatoms of different angular momentum, consisting of two Rydberg-blockaded atom clouds where each cloud carries initially a coherently shared single excitation. We demonstrate that the dipole-dipole interaction breaks up the superatoms by removing the excitations from the clouds. The dynamics is akin to an ensemble average over systems where only one atom per cloud participates in entangled motion and excitation transfer. Our findings should thus facilitate the experimental realization of adiabatic exciton transport in Rydberg systems by replacing single sites with atom clouds.
We consider two clouds of ground-state alkali atoms in two distinct hyperfine ground states. Each level is far off-resonantly coupled to a Rydberg state, which leads to dressed ground states with a weak admixture of the Rydberg state properties. Due to this admixture, for a proper choice of the Rydberg states, the atoms experience resonant dipole–dipole interactions that induce mechanical forces acting on all atoms within both clouds. This behaviour is in contrast to the dynamics predicted for bare dipole–dipole interactions between Rydberg superatoms, where only a single atom per cloud is subject to dipole–dipole induced motion (Möbius et al 2013 Phys. Rev. A 88 012716).
Owing to the unique physical characteristics of Rydberg atoms, which play an important role in quantum information and quantum computation, the theoretical and applied research of Rydberg atoms have become the hot spots of scientific research in recent years. With the large polarizability of Rydberg atoms, even a small electric field could cause a considerable electric dipole moment, resulting in a strong dipole-dipole interaction between Rydberg atoms. The multiple excitations of the Rydberg states are strongly inhibited because of the strong dipole interaction between atoms within a mesoscopic interaction (blockade) region. We call this phenomenon the dipole blockade effect. The dipole blockade effect makes it possible to build single-photon quantum devices, implement quantum gates, generate quantum entanglement, and simulate many-body quantum problems, etc. A Rydberg atomic ensemble in the same blockade region can be regarded as a superatom. In the same way, if these atoms trapped in two optical dipole traps, each sub-ensemble can be considered as a sub-superatom which is closely related to the superatom. According to the fact that two Rydberg sub-superatoms can be strongly correlated due to sharing no more than one excited Rydberg atom, we study correlated collective excitation and quantum entanglement between two Rydberg sub-superatoms in a steady state. With the superatom model, the problem of exponentially increasing system size with the number of atoms can be circumvented to a certain extent in studying many-body physics. By solving the two-body Lindblad’s master equation accurately, we obtain the analytical expressions for the collective excitation probabilities of the two sub-superatoms, and the concurrence measuring the bipartite entanglement between them. Our results show that they are all sensitive to the number of atoms in each Rydberg superatom: the bigger (including more atoms) the Rydberg superatom, the higher the collective Rydberg excitation probability is. And that the maximally entangled state can only be obtained with two equal-sized Rydberg superatoms. When this condition is fulfilled, the mesoscopic entanglement can be generated by adding the number of atoms in each Rydberg superatom. This may provide an attractive platform for studying the quantum-classical correspondence and have potential promising applications in quantum information processing.
A dipole blockade, in which Rydberg-atom-Rydberg-atom interactions inhibit all but a single collective Rydberg excitation, has been proposed as a mechanism to store and manipulate quantum information in mesoscopic ensembles. We investigate the excitation dynamics of a collection of a few atoms and show that they undergo an unexpected, qualitative change when the number of atoms increases from two to three. In particular, the combined action of three atoms, each of which pairwise would produce a blockade, can break the dipole blockade.
Based on the dipole blockade effect and with the aid of the superatom (SA) model, we propose a scheme to investigate the correlated evolution of two Rydberg sub-superatoms (SSAs), formed by two spatially separated atomic Rydberg sub-ensembles but in the same blockade region. Starting from the pure separable states, we investigate the in-phase or anti-phase correlated dynamics and explore how two Rydberg SSAs entangle with each other mediated by a single Rydberg excitation. Starting from the entangled states, we discuss the robustness of the system against decoherence induced by the dephasing rate. Our results show that both the correlated evolution of two Rydberg SSAs and their collective-state entanglement are usually sensitive to the number of each Rydberg SSA. This allows us to coherently manipulate the Rydberg ensemble over long distances from the single-quantum level to the mesoscopic level by changing the number of atoms. Furthermore, the method for dividing an SA into two SSAs and obtaining their spin operators without any approximation can be readily generalized to the case of many SSAs. It may have potential promising applications in quantum information processing and provide an attractive platform to study the quantum-classical correspondence, many-body physics and so on.
Strong resonant dipole-dipole interactions in flexible Rydberg aggregates enable the formation of exciton pulses, the interplay of atomic motion and electronic excitation transfer which feature high fidelity entanglement transport. Here, we demonstrate the coherent splitting of such pulses into two modes, which induce strongly different atomic motion, leading to clear signatures of nonadiabatic effects in atomic density profiles. The mechanism exploits local nonadiabatic effects at a conical intersection, turning them from a decoherence source into an asset. The conical intersection is a consequence of the exciton pulses moving along a linear Rydberg chain and approaching an additional linear, perpendicularly aligned Rydberg chain. The intersection provides a sensitive knob controlling the propagation direction and coherence properties of exciton pulses. We demonstrate that this scenario can be exploited as an exciton switch, controlling direction and coherence properties of the joint pulse on the second of the chains. Initially, we demonstrate the pulse splitting on planar aggregates with atomic motion one-dimensionally constrained and employing isotropic interactions. Subsequently, we confirm the splitting mechanism for a fully realistic scenario in which all spatial restrictions are removed and the full anisotropy of the dipole-dipole interactions is taken into account. Our results enable the experimental observation of non-adiabatic electronic dynamics and entanglement transport with Rydberg atoms. The conical intersection crossings are clearly evident, both in atomic mean position information and excited state spectra of the Rydberg system. This suggests flexible Rydberg aggregates as a test-bench for quantum chemical effects in experiments on much-inflated length scales. The fundamental ideas discussed here have general implications for excitons on a dynamic network.
We consider the interplay between excitonic and atomic motion in a regular, flexible chain of Rydberg atoms, extending our recent results on entanglement transport in Rydberg chains (Wüster et al 2010 Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 053004). In such a Rydberg chain, similar to molecular aggregates, an electronic excitation is delocalized due to long-range dipole–dipole interactions among the atoms. The transport of an exciton that is initially trapped by a chain dislocation is strongly coupled to nuclear dynamics, forming a localized pulse of combined excitation and displacement. This pulse transfers entanglement between dislocated atoms adiabatically along the chain. Details about the interaction and the preparation of the initial state are discussed. We also present evidence that the quantum dynamics of this complex many-body problem can be accurately described by selected quantum–classical methods, which greatly simplify investigations of excitation transport in flexible chains.