Dynamically Probing Ultracold Lattice Gases via Rydberg Molecules

Abstract

We show that the excitation of long-range Rydberg molecules in a three-dimensional optical lattice can be used as a position- and time-sensitive probe of the site occupancy in the system. To this end, we detect the ions which are continuously generated by the decay of the formed Rydberg molecules. While a superfluid gas shows molecule formation for all parameters, a Mott insulator with $n=1$ filling reveals a strong suppression of the number of formed molecules. In the limit of weak probing, the technique can be used to probe the superfluid to Mott-insulator transition in real-time. Our method can be extended to higher fillings and has various applications for the real-time diagnosis and manipulation of ultracold lattice gases.

6 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator in a gas of ultracold atoms
• Single-Atom Resolved Fluorescence Imaging of an Atomic Mott Insulator
• Imaging the Mott Insulator Shells using Atomic Clock Shifts
• Formation of spatial shell structures in the superfluid to Mott insulator transition
• Ultracold atom-electron interaction: from two to many-body physics
• Boson Mott insulators at finite temperatures
• Ionization of Rydberg atoms by blackbody radiation
• Giant cross section for molecular ion formation in ultracold Rydberg gases
• Scanning electron microscopy of cold gases

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Ultracold Rydberg Molecules
• Bistability vs. Metastability in Driven Dissipative Rydberg Gases
• Observation of mixed singlet-triplet Rb${}_2$ Rydberg molecules
• Ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Trilobites, butterflies, and other exotic specimens of long-range Rydberg molecules
• Ultracold molecular Rydberg physics in a high density environment
• Probing Nonlocal Spatial Correlations in Quantum Gases with Ultra-long-range Rydberg Molecules
• Controlling Rydberg atom excitations in dense background gases
• Electromagnetically induced transparency of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules
• Spin-Interaction Effects for Ultralong-range Rydberg Molecules in a Magnetic Field
• Alignment of s-state Rydberg molecules in magnetic fields
• Anisotropic blockade using pendular Rydberg butterfly molecules
• Electric field-induced wave-packet dynamics and geometrical rearrangement of trilobite Rydberg molecules
• Individual assembly of two-species Rydberg molecules using optical tweezers
• Supersolid phases of Rydberg-excited bosons on a triangular lattice
• Charged ultralong-range Rydberg trimers
• Interaction-Enhanced Imaging of Rydberg P states