A Coherent Light Shift on Alkaline-Earth Rydberg Atoms from Isolated Core Excitation without Auto-Ionization

Abstract

New experimental quantum simulation platforms have recently been implemented with divalent atoms trapped in optical tweezer arrays with promising performance. The second valence electron also brings new propects through the so-called Isolated Core Excitation (ICE), however autoionization presents a strong limitation to this use. In this study, we propose and demonstrate a new approach to applying a sizable light shift to a Rydberg state with close-to-resonant ICE while avoiding auto-ionization. In particular, we have investigated ICE of ytterbium atoms in ${}^1{S}_0$ Rydberg states. Spectroscopic studies of the induced auto-ionization and the light shift imparted to the Rydberg states are perfectly accounted for with Multi-channel Quantum Defect Theory. Such a control over the inner electron without disturbing the Rydberg electron brings a new tool for the targeted, coherent manipulation of Rydberg states in quantum simulation experiments performed with alkaline-earth atoms.

Acknowledgements added. Version submitted to Phys. Rev. X Quantum

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Universal gate operations on nuclear spin qubits in an optical tweezer array of ${}^{171}$Yb atoms
• Non-resonant Coherent Amplitude Transfer in Attosecond Four-Wave Mixing Spectroscopy
• Resolving chiral transitions in Rydberg arrays with quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism and finite-time scaling
• Engineering Rydberg-pair interactions in divalent atoms with hyperfine-split ionization thresholds
• Isolated-core quadrupole excitation of highly excited autoionizing Rydberg states
• Autoionization of high-$\ell$ core-excited Rydberg states of alkaline-earth-metal atoms
• Fast nuclear-spin gates and electrons-nuclei entanglement of neutral atoms in weak magnetic fields
• Driving alkali Rydberg transitions with a phase-modulated optical lattice
• Autoionization-enhanced Rydberg dressing by fast contaminant removal
• Differential polarizability at 1064 nm of the strontium intercombination transition
• High-resolution spectroscopy of 162Dy Rydberg levels