Ultra-large Rydberg dimers in optical lattices

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of Rydberg electrons excited from the ground state of ultracold atoms trapped in an optical lattice. We first consider a lattice comprising an array of double-well potentials, where each double well is occupied by two ultracold atoms. We demonstrate the existence of molecular states with equilibrium distances of the order of experimentally attainable inter-well spacings and binding energies of the order of 10^3 GHz. We also consider the situation whereby ground-state atoms trapped in an optical lattice are collectively excited to Rydberg levels, such that the charge-density distributions of neighbouring atoms overlap. We compute the hopping rate and interaction matrix elements between highly-excited electrons separated by distances comparable to typical lattice spacings. Such systems have tunable interaction parameters and a temperature ~10^{-4} times smaller than the Fermi temperature, making them potentially attractive for the study and simulation of strongly correlated electronic systems.

10 pages, 6 figures, PRA format, version to be published in PRA

References in corpus (14)

• Cold bosonic atoms in optical lattices
• Ultracold atomic gases in optical lattices: mimicking condensed matter physics and beyond
• Quantum computation with trapped polar molecules
• Time-resolved Observation and Control of Superexchange Interactions with Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices
• A possible path to a new class of ferromagnetic and half metallic ferromagnetic materials
• A lattice of double wells for manipulating pairs of cold atoms
• Band-selective Measurement of Electronic Dynamics in VO2 using Femtosecond Near Edge X-ray Absorption
• Macrodimers: ultralong range Rydberg molecules
• Long-lived Feshbach molecules in a 3D optical lattice
• Molecule formation in ultracold atomic gases
• Bragg Spectroscopy of ultracold atoms loaded in an optical lattice
• Influence of next-nearest-neighbor electron hopping on the static and dynamical properties of the 2D Hubbard model
• Interplay between incommensurate phases in the cuprates
• Laser Cooling of Trapped Fermi Gases deeply below the Fermi Temperature

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Dipole blockade in a cold Rydberg atomic sample
• Adiabatic Formation of Rydberg Crystals with Chirped Laser Pulses
• Dipole-Dipole coupled double Rydberg molecules
• Ultrafast creation of overlapping Rydberg electrons in an atomic BEC and Mott-insulator lattice
• Phases, collective modes, and non-equilibrium dynamics of dissipative Rydberg atoms
• Phases and collective modes of Rydberg atoms in an optical lattice
• Ultrafast many-body dynamics of dense Rydberg gases and ultracold plasma