Collective excitation of Rydberg-atom ensembles beyond the $\sqrt{N}$ enhancement

Abstract

In an ensemble of laser-driven atoms involving strongly interacting Rydberg states, the excitation probability is usually strongly suppressed. In contrast, here we identify a regime in which the steady-state Rydberg excited fraction is enhanced by the interaction. This effect is associated with the build-up of many-body coherences, induced by coherent multi-photon excitations between collective states. The excitation enhancement should be observable under currently-existing experimental conditions, and may serve as a direct probe for the presence of coherent multi-photon dynamics involving collective quantum states.

7 pages, 4 figures

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• Strong Coupling of a Spin Ensemble to a Superconducting Resonator
• Cavity QED with a Bose-Einstein condensate
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Effective dynamics of strongly dissipative Rydberg gases
• Interacting photon pulses in Rydberg medium
• De-excitation spectroscopy of strongly interacting Rydberg gases
• Anomalous excitation enhancement with Rydberg-dressed atoms