Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Quantum interference in interacting three-level Rydberg gases: coherent population trapping and electromagnetically induced transparency

S. Sevinçli, Cenap Ates, Thomas Pohl, H. Schempp, C. S. Hofmann, G. Günter, Thomas Amthor, Matthias Weidemüller, Jonathan D. Pritchard, Daniel Maxwell, A. Gauguet, Kevin J. Weatherill, M. P. A. Jones, Charles S. Adams

Published Sep 14, 2011• 62 citations

Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the effects of strong dipole-dipole interactions on three-level interference phenomena such as coherent population trapping and electromagnetically induced transparency. Experiments are performed on laser cooled rubidium atoms and the results compared to a many-body theory based on either a reduced many-body density matrix expansion or Monte Carlo simulations of many-body rate equations. We show that these approaches permit quantitative predictions of the experimentally observed excitation and transmission spectra. Based on the calculations, we moreover predict a universal scaling of the nonlinear response of cold Rydberg gases.

DOI: 10.1088/0953-4075/44/18/184018

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