Photoionization of Rydberg Atoms in Optical Lattices

Abstract

We develop a formalism for photoionization (PI) and potential energy curves (PECs) of Rydberg atoms in ponderomotive optical lattices and apply it to examples covering several regimes of the optical-lattice depth. The effect of lattice-induced PI on Rydberg-atom lifetime ranges from noticeable to highly dominant when compared with natural decay. The PI behavior is governed by the generally rapid decrease of the PI cross sections as a function of angular-momentum ($\ell$), and by lattice-induced $\ell$-mixing across the optical-lattice PECs. In GHz-deep lattices, $\ell$-mixing leads to a rich PEC structure, and the significant low-$\ell$ PI cross sections are distributed over many lattice-mixed Rydberg states. In lattices less than several tens-of-MHz deep, atoms on low-$\ell$ PECs are essentially $\ell$-mixing-free and maintain large PI cross sections, while atoms on high-$\ell$ PECs trend towards being PI-free. Characterization of PI in GHz-deep Rydberg-atom lattices may be beneficial for optical control and quantum-state manipulation of Rydberg atoms, while data on PI in shallower lattices are potentially useful in high-precision spectroscopy and quantum-computing applications of lattice-confined Rydberg atoms.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Long-range atom-ion Rydberg molecule: A novel molecular binding mechanism
• Photoionization of $nS$ and $nD$ Rydberg atoms of Rb and Cs from the near-infrared to the ultraviolet spectral region
• AC polarizability and photoionization cross-section measurements in an optical lattice
• Spectroscopy of the ${}^{85}$Rb 4$D_{3/2}$ state for hyperfine-structure determination
• Dynamic polarizability of the ${}^{85}$Rb $5D_{3/2}$-state in 1064 nm light
• Gauge effects in bound-bound Rydberg-transition matrix elements
• Microscopic Rydberg electron orbit manipulation with optical tweezers
• Ultrafast many-body dynamics of dense Rydberg gases and ultracold plasma