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arXiv:1510.08710 · Physical Review Letters

Anomalous Broadening in Driven Dissipative Rydberg Systems

Elizabeth A. Goldschmidt, Thomas Boulier, Roger C. Brown, Silvio Koller, Jeremy T. Young, Alexey Vyacheslavovich Gorshkov, S. L. Rolston, J. V. Porto

Published Mar 16, 2016• 110 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We observe interaction-induced broadening of the two-photon 5s-18s transition in ^{87}Rb atoms trapped in a 3D optical lattice. The measured linewidth increases by nearly 2 orders of magnitude with increasing atomic density and excitation strength, with corresponding suppression of resonant scattering and enhancement of off-resonant scattering. We attribute the increased linewidth to resonant dipole-dipole interactions of 18s atoms with blackbody induced population in nearby np states. Over a range of initial atomic densities and excitation strengths, the transition width is described by a single function of the steady-state density of Rydberg atoms, and the observed resonant excitation rate corresponds to that of a two-level system with the measured, rather than natural, linewidth. The broadening mechanism observed here is likely to have negative implications for many proposals with coherently interacting Rydberg atoms.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.116.113001

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We observe interaction-induced broadening of the two-photon 5s-18s transition in ^{87}Rb atoms trapped in a 3D optical lattice. The measured linewidth increases by nearly 2 orders of magnitude with increasing atomic density and excitation strength, with corresponding suppression of resonant scattering and enhancement of off-resonant scattering. We attribute the increased linewidth to resonant dipole-dipole interactions of 18s atoms with blackbody induced population in nearby np states. Over a range of initial atomic densities and excitation strengths, the transition width is described by a single function of the steady-state density of Rydberg atoms, and the observed resonant excitation rate corresponds to that of a two-level system with the measured, rather than natural, linewidth. The broadening mechanism observed here is likely to have negative implications for many proposals with coherently interacting Rydberg atoms.
Abstract Coherently manipulating Rydberg atoms in mesoscopic systems has proven challenging due to the unwanted population of nearby Rydberg levels by black-body radiation. Recently, there have been some efforts towards understanding these effects using states with a low principal quantum number that only have resonant dipole–dipole interactions. We perform experiments that exhibit black-body-induced dipole–dipole interactions for a state that also has a significant van der Waals interaction. Using an enhanced rate-equation model that captures some of the long-range properties of the dipolar interaction, we show that the initial degree of Rydberg excitation is dominated by the van der Waals interaction, while the observed linewidth at later times is dominated by the dipole–dipole interaction. We also point out some prospects for quantum simulation.
This thesis investigates the effects of strong Rydberg-Rydberg interactions in the presence of three-level coherent phenomena such as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), Autler-Townes splitting (ATS) and coherent population trapping (CPT). As a result of their remarkable properties, highly excited Rydberg atoms have great potential for applications in diverse areas. The interaction-induced dipole blockade between the Rydberg atoms has been proposed as a fundamental tool in quantum information processing with neutral atoms. Yet, they require an increasing level of understanding and control. A many-body theory is developed for the Rydberg excitation dynamics in various atomic systems with different densities and velocity distributions such as for atoms in a vapour cell, ultracold atoms in magneto-optical and optical dipole traps, or a system of optical lattices or dipole trap arrays. The systems were investigated by solving the optical Bloch equations numerically for a two-photon ladder excitation scheme, taking into consideration various experimentally relevant conditions for the emergence of the effects of Rydberg-Rydberg interactions. The lineshape properties of the EIT/ATS/CPT spectra are observed and reviewed while the physical arguments for how the lineshape properties change as a function of various parameters are provided. To account for the differing atomic distributions in the atomic systems, a many-body model based on Monte-Carlo simulation is developed to describe the optical response of the multiatoms systems to two-photon excitation laser lights in the regimes of EIT, ATS and CPT and strong atomic interactions. The study of the lineshape properties allows one to understand possible ways to detect the emergence of interaction-induced excitation suppression, asymmetry, line shift and excitation "antiblockade" enhancement effects. Besides these, the main result of this study is the demonstration that the linewidth properties of the Rydberg EIT/ATS/CPT spectra can reveal collective many-body behaviour associated with the creation of many-body entangled states. The linewidth properties provide compelling evidence of the creation of collective states by confirming the predicted dependence of the generalised Rabi frequency on the square root of the number of atoms in the mesoscopic ensemble. This study could help to quantify and control the conditions necessary for creating many-body entanglement within atomic ensembles. The thesis also describes the step towards experimentally investigating the response of an atomic system to excitation lasers and studying the excitation dynamics of interacting atoms in such systems. Significant work was done to set up the two-photon excitation system for preparing atoms in high-lying Rydberg states and performing Rydberg-based vapour cell experiments. Qualitative analysis of the Rydberg states transparency features allows to obtain laser parameters such as the laser linewidths and Rabi frequencies that are used in the theoretical model to create the similarity between the experimental and theoretical parameters. Further works were carried out towards realising the building blocks for experimentally investigating the interactions between Rydberg atoms in ultracold atom systems. This is by setting-up a trapping system capable of producing a highly dense ultracold atom ensemble within a magneto-optical trap, cold enough to serve as a reservoir from which the optical dipole trap can be loaded efficiently. The optical dipole trap is designed and set up to achieve a micron-size trapping potential capable of producing a sub-micron sized atomic cloud, with a controllable number of atoms, where a full blockade effect can be achieved and exploited to implement a qubit system for quantum gate operations.
In a driven dense ensemble of two-level atoms the decay acts in a correlated way on several atoms simultaneously. The competition between the coherent laser excitation and the dipole-dipole interaction induced by the dissipation gives rise to a bimodal distribution of the excitation density. More interestingly, the presence of nonlocal dissipation lifts the direct connection between the photon emission rate and the density of excited atoms present in typical open atomic systems formed by, for example, Rydberg gases or trapped ions. In contrast, here the bimodality present in the excitation density distribution, which indicates the existence of a dynamical first-order transition, is not accompanied by an intermittent behavior of the photon emission. Moreover, due to the nonlocal character of the dissipation the spatial coherence of the steady state can be measured experimentally by analyzing solely global quantities---the mean values of the photon emission rate and the density of excited atoms. We show that these effects can be experimentally probed in a system of trapped Sr atoms.
Laser-cooled 85Rb^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb atoms were optically excited to 46d5∕246{d}_{5∕2}46d5∕2​ Rydberg states. A microwave pulse transferred a fraction of the atoms to the 47p3∕247{p}_{3∕2}47p3∕2​ Rydberg state. The resonant electric dipole-dipole interactions between atoms in these two states were probed using the linewidth of the two-photon microwave transition $46{d}_{5∕2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}47{d}_{5∕2}$. The presence of a weak magnetic field $\ensuremath{\approx}0.5\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{G}$ reduced the observed line broadening, indicating that the interaction is suppressed by the field. The field removes some of the energy degeneracies responsible for the resonant interaction, and this is the basis for a quantitative model of the resulting suppression. A technique for the calibration of magnetic field strengths using the $34{s}_{1∕2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}34{p}_{1∕2}$ one-photon transition is also presented.
We report on the observation of ultralong range interactions in a gas of cold rubidium Rydberg atoms. The van der Waals interaction between a pair of Rydberg atoms separated as far as 100,000 Bohr radii features two important effects: spectral broadening of the resonance lines and suppression of excitation with increasing density. The density dependence of these effects is investigated in detail for the S- and P-Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers n approximately 60 and n approximately 80 excited by narrow-band continuous-wave laser light. The density-dependent suppression of excitation can be interpreted as the onset of an interaction-induced local blockade.
Experiments are carried out on the spectroscopy of the Förster resonance lines Rb(37 P ) + Rb(37 P ) → Rb(37 S ) + Rb(38 S ) and microwave transitions nP → n ′ S , n ′ D between Rydberg states of cold rubidium atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Under ordinary conditions, all spectra exhibit a linewidth of 2–3 MHz irrespective of the interaction time between atoms or between atoms and microwave radiation, although the limit resonance width should be determined by the inverse interaction time. The analysis of experimental conditions has shown that the main source of line broadening is the inhomogeneous electric field of cold photoions that are generated under the excitation of initial nP Rydberg states by broadband pulsed laser radiation. The application of an additional electric-field pulse that rapidly extracts photoions produced by a laser pulse leads to a considerable narrowing of lines of microwave resonances and the Förster resonance. Various sources of line broadening in cold Rydberg atoms are analyzed.