Darmstadt 2008 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 19: Ultracold Rydberg gases (jointly with Q)
A 19.2: Vortrag
Donnerstag, 13. März 2008, 08:45–09:00, 2G
Universal Scaling in a Strongly Interacting Rydberg gas — •Hendrik Weimer1, Hans Peter Büchler1, Rolf Heidemann2, Ulrich Raitzsch2, Vera Bendkowsky2, Björn Butscher2, Robert Löw2, and Tilman Pfau2 — 1Institut für Theoretische Physik III, Universität Stuttgart — 25. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart
We analyze the van der Waals blockade and the quantum evolution of an atomic gas resonantly driven by a laser into a strongly interacting Rydberg state. Such a system has recently been studied experimentally by Heidemann et al. [1]. The main mechanism behind the van der Waals blockade is that once a Rydberg atom is excited, the van der Waals interaction shifts the surrounding atoms out of resonance with the driving laser and therefore suppresses the excitation of additional Rydberg atoms. The combination of the van der Waals interaction with the Rabi frequency of the resonant laser gives rise to a single dimensionless parameter. We show that the experimental data exhibits a
data collapse with a universal scaling function in this single dimensionless parameter. A numerical analysis of the effective theory provides excellent agreement for the scaling function with the experiment, and is evidence for universality in a strongly interacting Rydberg gas undergoing coherent quantum evolution.
[1] R. Heidemann et. al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 163601 (2007).