Probing interactions between Rydberg atoms with large electric dipole moments in amplitude modulated electric fields

Abstract

Dipole-dipole interactions between helium atoms in Rydberg-Stark states with principal quantum number $n=53$ and approximately linear Stark energy shifts, resulting from induced electric dipole moments of approximately 7900 D, have been investigated experimentally. The experiments were performed in pulsed supersonic metastable helium beams, with particle number densities of up to $\sim 10^9$ cm${}^{-3}$. In the presence of amplitude-modulated, radio-frequency electric fields, changes in the spectral intensity distributions associated with the transitions to these states that are attributed to dipole-dipole interactions within the ensembles of excited atoms have been observed. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with calculations of the Rydberg energy level structure carried out using Floquet methods, and excitations shared by up to 4 atoms. The use of these Rydberg-Stark states as sensors for non-resonant broadband radio-frequency electrical noise is also discussed.

6 page, 4 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Broadband Rydberg Atom-Based Electric-Field Probe: From Self-Calibrated Measurements to Sub-Wavelength Imaging
• Dipole blockade in a cold Rydberg atomic sample
• Electric-field induced dipole blockade with Rydberg atoms
• Electromagnetically induced transparency of an interacting cold Rydberg ensemble
• Controlling the interactions of a few cold Rb Rydberg atoms by radiofrequency-assisted Förster resonances
• Transmission-line decelerators for atoms in high Rydberg states
• An oscillator circuit to produce a radio-frequency discharge and application to metastable helium saturated absorption spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Experimental demonstration of a Rydberg-atom beam splitter
• Preparation of circular Rydberg states in helium using the crossed fields method
• Matter-wave interferometry with atoms in high Rydberg states
• Resonance-enhanced collective effect in a triangle arrangement of Rydberg atoms with anisotropic interactions
• Mean-field energy-level shifts and dielectric properties of strongly polarized Rydberg gases