Dynamical crystallization in a low-dimensional Rydberg gas

Abstract

Dominating finite-range interactions in many-body systems can lead to intriguing self-ordered phases of matter. Well known examples are crystalline solids or Coulomb crystals in ion traps. In those systems, crystallization proceeds via a classical transition, driven by thermal fluctuations. In contrast, ensembles of ultracold atoms laser-excited to Rydberg states provide a well-controlled quantum system, in which a crystalline phase transition governed by quantum fluctuations can be explored. Here we report on the experimental preparation of the crystalline states in such a Rydberg many-body system. Fast coherent control on the many-body level is achieved via numerically optimized laser excitation pulses. We observe an excitation-number staircase as a function of the system size and show directly the emergence of incompressible ordered states on its steps. Our results demonstrate the applicability of quantum optical control techniques in strongly interacting systems, paving the way towards the investigation of novel quantum phases in long-range interacting quantum systems, as well as for detailed studies of their coherence and correlation properties.

10 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Single-Atom Resolved Fluorescence Imaging of an Atomic Mott Insulator
• Observation of mesoscopic crystalline structures in a two-dimensional Rydberg gas
• An experimental and theoretical guide to strongly interacting Rydberg gases
• Quantum critical behavior in strongly interacting Rydberg gases
• Two-Stage Melting in Systems of Strongly Interacting Rydberg Atoms
• Quantum correlations and entanglement in far-from-equilibrium spin systems
• Stimulated adiabatic passage in a dissipative Rydberg superatom
• Entropic enhancement of spatial correlations in a laser-driven Rydberg gas
• Thermalization in a coherently driven ensemble of two-level systems

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Many-Body Quantum Spin Dynamics with Monte Carlo Trajectories on a Discrete Phase Space
• Strongly correlated growth of Rydberg aggregates in a vapor cell
• Localization phenomena in interacting Rydberg lattice gases with position disorder
• Strongly interacting ultracold polar molecules
• Exotic topological density waves in cold atomic Rydberg fermions
• Non-equilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems
• Effective dynamics of strongly dissipative Rydberg gases
• Anomalous excitation facilitation in inhomogeneously broadened Rydberg gases
• Few-body quantum physics with strongly interacting Rydberg polaritons