Blackbody-radiation-induced facilitated excitation of Rydberg atoms in optical tweezers
Lorenzo Festa, Nikolaus Lorenz, Lea-Marina Steinert, Zaijun Chen, Philip Osterholz, Robin Eberhard, Christian Groß
Abstract
Blackbody radiation, omnipresent at room temperature, couples nearby Rydberg states. The resulting state mixture features strong dipolar interactions, which may induce dephasing in a Rydberg many-body system. Here we report on a single atom resolved study of this state contamination and the emerging pairwise interactions in optical tweezers. For near-resonant laser detuning we observe characteristic correlations with a length scale set by the dipolar interaction. Our study reveals the microscopic origin of avalanche excitation observed in previous experiments.
Topics & Concepts
DephasingBlack-body radiationExcitationAtomic physicsPhysicsRydberg formulaRydberg atomDipoleOptical tweezersLaserRydberg stateRadiationMolecular physicsOpticsCondensed matter physicsQuantum mechanicsIonizationIonCold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein CondensatesQuantum Information and CryptographyQuantum optics and atomic interactions