All-optical measurement of Rydberg state lifetimes

Abstract

We have developed an all-optical method for measuring the lifetimes of $nS$ and $nD$ Rydberg states and demonstrate its capabilities with measurements on a dilute cloud of ultracold ${}^{87}$Rb atoms in a cryogenic environment. The method is based on the time-resolved observation of resonant light absorption by ground state atoms and selective transfer of Rydberg atoms into the ground state at varying delay times in order to reconstruct Rydberg decay curves. Our measurements of the ${}^{87}$Rb $30S_{1/2}$ state indicate an increase of the lifetime at lowered environment temperatures, as expected due to decreased black body radiation. For the $38D_{5/2}$ state with an attractive dipole-dipole interaction, ionization and lifetime reduction due to collisional effects are observed.

References in corpus (9)

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• Single Photon Transistor Mediated by Inter-State Rydberg Interaction
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• State-selective all-optical detection of Rydberg atoms

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• Faithful state transfer between two-level systems via an actively cooled finite-temperature cavity
• Density matrix reconstruction of three-level atoms via Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency
• Measurements of blackbody radiation-induced transition rates between high-lying S, P and D Rydberg levels
• Toffoli gate based on a three-body fine-structure-state-changing Förster resonance in Rydberg atoms
• Decay-dephasing-induced steady states in bosonic Rydberg-excited quantum gases in an optical lattice
• Multiphoton dressed Rydberg excitations in a microwave cavity with ultracold Rb atoms
• One-step preparation of 3D Bell and 3D GHZ states with Rydberg atoms