Non-linear absorption and density dependent dephasing in Rydberg EIT-media

Abstract

Light propagation through an ensemble of ultra-cold Rydberg atoms in electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) configuration is studied. In strongly interacting Rydberg EIT media, non-linear optical effects lead to a non-trivial dependence of the degree of probe beam attenuation on the medium density and on its initial intensity. We develop a Monte Carlo rate equation model that self-consistently includes the effect of the probe beam attenuation to investigate the steady state of the Rydberg medium driven by two laser fields. We compare our results to recent experimental data and to results of other state-of-the-art models for light propagation in Rydberg EIT-media. We find that for low probe field intensities, our results match the experimental data best if a density-dependent dephasing rate is included in the model. At higher probe intensities, our model deviates from other theoretical approaches, as it predicts a spectral asymmetry together with line broadening. These are likely due to off-resonant excitation channels, which however have not been observed in recent experiments. Atomic motion and coupling to additional Rydberg levels are discussed as possible origins for these deviations.

10 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Cooperative atom-light interaction in a blockaded Rydberg ensemble
• Storage and control of optical photons using Rydberg polaritons
• Many-body theory of excitation dynamics in an ultracold Rydberg gas
• Dissipative Many-body Quantum Optics in Rydberg Media
• Non-adiabatic motional effects and dissipative blockade for Rydberg atoms excited from optical lattices or microtraps
• Investigation of dephasing rates in an interacting Rydberg gas

Cited by in corpus (17)

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• Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons
• Electromagnetically induced transparency in an entangled medium
• Quantum and Nonlinear Optics in Strongly Interacting Atomic Ensembles
• Effective dynamics of strongly dissipative Rydberg gases
• Coherent versus incoherent excitation dynamics in dissipative many-body Rydberg systems
• Strong photon blockade with intracavity electromagnetically induced transparency in blockaded Rydberg ensemble
• Collective excitation of Rydberg-atom ensembles beyond the $\sqrt{N}$ enhancement
• Semi-analytical model for nonlinear light propagation in strongly interacting Rydberg gases
• Density matrix reconstruction of three-level atoms via Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency
• Interacting photon pulses in Rydberg medium
• Electromagnetically Induced Transparency of Interacting Rydberg Atoms with Two-Body dephasing
• Radiation trapping in a dense cold Rydberg gas
• Nonlinear absorption in interacting Rydberg electromagnetically-induced-transparency spectra on two-photon resonance
• Nonlocal nonlinear response of thermal Rydberg atoms and modulational instability in absorptive nonlinear media
• Electromagnetically induced transparency and absorption cross-over with a four-level Rydberg system
• Lévy statistics of interacting Rydberg gases