Semi-analytical model for nonlinear light propagation in strongly interacting Rydberg gases

Abstract

Rate equation models are extensively used to describe the many-body states of laser driven atomic gases. We show that the properties of the rate equation model used to describe nonlinear optical effects arising in interacting Rydberg gases can be understood by considering the excitation of individual super-atoms. From this we deduce a simple semi-analytic model that accurately describes the Rydberg density and optical susceptibility for different dimensionalities. We identify the previously reported universal dependence of the susceptibility on the Rydberg excited fraction as an intrinsic property of the rate equation model that is rooted in one-body properties. Benchmarking against exact master equation calculations, we identify regimes in which the semi-analytic model is particularly reliable. The performance of the model improves in the presence of dephasing which destroys higher order atomic coherences.

7 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Cooperative atom-light interaction in a blockaded Rydberg ensemble
• Storage and control of optical photons using Rydberg polaritons
• Quantum critical behavior in strongly interacting Rydberg gases
• Observation and measurement of "giant" dispersive optical non-linearities in an ensemble of cold Rydberg atoms
• Many-body theory of excitation dynamics in an ultracold Rydberg gas
• Dissipative Many-body Quantum Optics in Rydberg Media
• Steady-state crystallization of Rydberg excitations in an optically driven lattice gas
• Coherent versus incoherent excitation dynamics in dissipative many-body Rydberg systems

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons
• Rydberg-Blockade Effects in Autler-Townes Spectra of Ultracold Strontium
• Rydberg superatoms: An artificial quantum system for quantum information processing and quantum optics
• Two-way interconversion of millimeter-wave and optical fields in Rydberg gases
• Quantum and Nonlinear Optics in Strongly Interacting Atomic Ensembles
• Correlated photon dynamics in dissipative Rydberg media
• Uncovering the non-equilibrium phase structure of an open quantum spin system
• Collective excitation of Rydberg-atom ensembles beyond the $\sqrt{N}$ enhancement
• Spectral shift and dephasing of electromagnetically induced transparency in an interacting Rydberg gas
• Density matrix reconstruction of three-level atoms via Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency
• Nonlinear absorption in interacting Rydberg electromagnetically-induced-transparency spectra on two-photon resonance
• Interaction-Enhanced Imaging of Rydberg P states
• Nonlocal nonlinear response of thermal Rydberg atoms and modulational instability in absorptive nonlinear media
• Lévy statistics of interacting Rydberg gases
• Three-level rate equations in cold, disordered Rydberg gases
• Blockade-induced resonant enhancement of the optical nonlinearity in a Rydberg medium