The spontaneous decay rate of an excited atom placed near a dielectric cylinder is investigated. Special attention is paid to the case when the cylinder radius is small in comparison with radiation wavelength (nanofiber or photonic wire). In this case, the analytical expressions of the transition rates for different orientations of a dipole are derived. It is shown that the main contribution to decay rates is due to the quasistatic interaction of the atom dipole momentum with the nanofiber, and the contributions of guided modes are exponentially small. On the contrary, in the case when the radius of the fiber is only slightly less than the radiation wavelength, the influence of guided modes can be substantial. The results obtained are compared with the case of a dielectric nanospheroid and an ideally conducting wire.
The dipole blockade of very-high-$n, n\ensuremath{\sim}300$, strontium
5snf1F3 Rydberg atoms in a hot atomic beam is studied. For such high
n, the blockade radius can exceed the linear dimensions of the excitation volume. Rydberg atoms formed inside the excitation volume can, upon leaving the region, continue to suppress excitation until they have moved farther away than the blockade radius. Moreover, the high density of states originating from the many magnetic sublevels associated with the
F states results in a small but finite probability of excitation of
L=3n1F3 atom pairs at small internuclear separations below the blockade radius. We demonstrate that these effects can be distinguished from one another by the distinct features they imprint on the Mandel
Q parameter as a function of the duration of the exciting laser.
Ultracold highly excited atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) are strongly coupled by the dipole-dipole interaction. We have investigated the importance of many-body effects by controlling the dimensionality and density of the excited sample. We excited three different cylindrical volumes of atoms in the MOT to Rydberg states. At small radius, where the sample is nearly one-dimensional, many-body interactions are suppressed. At larger radii, the sample becomes three-dimensional and many-body effects are apparent.