“Plasma” effect in the formation of long lifetime Rydberg states

Adam Kirrander, Seth T. Rittenhouse, Marco Ascoli +3 more

We propose a realizable and efficient approach for exciting long-range ion-pair molecules, known as heavy Rydberg states, in an ultracold ${}^{85}$Rb gas via Feshbach resonances. Heavy Rydberg states, the molecular analogs of electronic Rydberg states, with the electron replaced by an atomic anion, offer opportunities for novel physics, including the formation of ultracold anions and strongly coupled plasmas. We map the positions, lifetimes, and Franck-Condon factors of heavy Rydberg resonances across a wide range of excitation energies, and we calculate the rates of formation for the most promising transitions through long-lived intermediate interferometric resonances.

Boris Peter Stoicheff

Jovica Stanojevic, Robin C ot 'e

Jingwei Guo, Mervash Varnasseri, Mikko Riese +1 more

An ultra-cold molecular plasma with extraordinarily long lifetime (~0.5 ms) is generated under strong collisional cooling conditions in the expansion region of a seeded supersonic jet expansion close to the nozzle. A resonant two-photon one-color laser process excites para-difluorobenzene molecules into the high-n Rydberg threshold region. Disorder heating during plasma formation is quenched by the high collision rate in the expansion, which keeps the ions at the translational jet temperature of 0.2K-0.7K. The Coulomb coupling parameter \Gammai for the ions is expected to be ca. 230-820.

Jovica Stanojevic, Robin Côté, D. Tong +3 more

AbdAlGhaffar Amer, V. Walther, Francis Robicheaux

We simulate the effects of a neutral electron--hole plasma on Rydberg excitons in cuprous oxide (Cu$_2$O), focusing on the validity of Debye screening and the role of plasma-induced thermalization. Unlike atomic Rydberg states, excitons in Cu$_2$O consist of quasiparticles with comparable effective masses whose orbital frequencies can exceed the plasma frequency, invalidating the assumption of a stationary screened charge. Using two complementary approaches, a classical orbit model and a harmonic-oscillator representation evolved via the truncated Wigner approximation, we study exciton lifetimes and interaction screening under realistic plasma conditions. We find numerically that plasma-induced scattering induces finite exciton lifetimes with specific scaling relations with plasma density, principal quantum number $n$ and temperature, possibly providing an explanation for experimentally observed deviations from the $n^3$ scaling at high principal quantum numbers. By explicitly computing time-averaged electric fields, we show that Debye screening overestimates the screening of the exciton's internal field, especially for high angular momentum states. Furthermore, we demonstrate that exciton-exciton interactions are not Debye screened at separations comparable to the Debye length for Rydberg excitons that are well resolvable in absorption measurements.