In this work, we study the role of the ac Stark effects on the excitation of nS1/2 cold Rydberg atoms produced in a rubidium magneto-optical trap. We have observed an atomic population in the nP3/2 state after excitation of nS1/2 for 29<or=n<or=37. Such an observation is normally attributed to binary collisions; however, the interaction between Rb nS1/2 atoms is repulsive. To explain our results, the dipole-dipole interaction and ac Stark shifts from the excitation laser must be considered. We find that the Rydberg-atom-pair state asymptotically correlating to nP3/2+(n-1)P3/2 is excited directly.
We have observed a significant yield of (n + 2)P atoms after the excitation of nD Rydberg atoms in a Rb MOT, where 27 < n < 41, which can be attributed to binary collisions between Rydberg atoms. We have measured its dependence on principle quantum number as well as DC electric field. These results are compared to a model which uses the Landau-Zener method to calculate transition probabilities at avoided crossings in the two-atom potential energy curves, taking into account the effects of the DC Stark effect due to the background electric field.
We have studied the decay of Rydberg excitations in a cold Rb gas. A 10 ns, pulsed-dye-amplified diode laser excites Rb atoms at $70\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$ in a magneto-optical trap to
ns or
np Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers $26\ensuremath{\le}n\ensuremath{\le}40$. Time-delayed state-selective field ionization is used to directly monitor the population in the initial and neighboring Rydberg levels. The measured time dependence of the Rydberg population is well described by numerical simulations which consider only spontaneous emission and population transfer by blackbody radiation. No evidence for collective decay is found at atom densities up to $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{9}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$. This result is in contrast to a previous study [Wang et al., Phys. Rev. A 75, 033802 (2007)], in which superradiant decay was theoretically predicted and experimentally inferred for atom density and laser focal volume conditions very similar to those considered here. Suppression of collective emission is likely due to variations in transition energies within the atom sample, dominated by inhomogeneities in dipole-dipole exchange interactions for initial
s states, or by a combination of dipole-dipole and electric field inhomogeneities for the initial
p states.
We present evidence for molecular resonances in a cold dense gas of rubidium Rydberg atoms. Single UV photon excitation from the 5s ground state to np Rydberg states (n=50-90) reveals resonances at energies corresponding to excited atom pairs (n-1)d+ns. We attribute these normally forbidden transitions to avoided crossings between the long-range molecular potentials of two Rydberg atoms. These strong van der Waals interactions result in avoided crossings at extremely long range, e.g., approximately 58 000 times the Bohr radius (a(0)) for n=70.
In this work, we excite
nD5/2 Rydberg states in a dense and cold Rb atomic sample held in a 10.6 $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$ quasi-electrostatic trap using narrow-bandwidth laser pulses. Our goal is to study the F\"orster resonance process $n{D}_{5/2}+n{D}_{5/2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}(n\ensuremath{-}2)F+(n+2){P}_{3/2}$ at zero electric field as a function of the total atomic density using pulsed-field ionization in the range
n=37−−47. Such a process is almost degenerate for
n=43. Younge and coworkers studied this process [K. C. Younge, A. Reinhard, T. Pohl, P. R. Berman, and G. Raithel, Phys. Rev. A 79, 043420 (2009)] and attributed the observed saturation to many-body effects. Our results show that as the ground-state atomic density increases, the
nD5/2 state population and the population transfer starts to saturate, which is consistent with the onset of Rydberg atom blockade and previously published results. However, since our experiment allows the independent measurement of the
nD5/2 and
(n+2)P3/2 state populations, we were able to obtain the
(n+2)P3/2 state population density dependence. Our results clearly show that the
(n+2)P3/2 state population depends quadratically on the total Rydberg atomic population, and consequently, the F\"orster resonance is a two-body process for a ground-state atomic density below $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{11}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$.
We have studied the collisional energy transfer process K (ns) +K (n-2) d {yields} K (np) +K (n-1) p which is tuned into resonance with an applied static electric field. The initial Rydberg states are excited stepwise with two dye laser pulses. The resonant energy transfer is detected by selectively field ionizing the final K(np) state as the static field is swept over many laser shots. Due to fine structure splitting of the d and p levels 45 resonances are energetically allowed at n{sub s}=25. The actual number of resonances that are observed depends on the polarization of the laser light, the dipole-dipole selection rules, and the n state excited. Above n{sub s}=29 all resonances are energically forbidden. We have measured the position of the resonances in electric field from n{sub s}=25 to n{sub s}=29 and found them to be in good agreement with calculated positions.