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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 3: Gruppenberichte Quanteneffekte

Q 3.2: Group Report

Monday, March 13, 2006, 11:40–12:10, HI

Coherent processes in an ultracold gas of Rydberg atoms — •M. Reetz-Lamour¹, T. Amthor¹, A.L. de Oliveira^2,3, J. Deiglmayr¹, S. Westermann¹, J. Denskat¹, and M. Weidemüller¹ — ¹Physikalisches Institut Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Str. 3, 79104 Freiburg — ²Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina, Departamento de Física, Joinville, SC 89223-100, Brazil — ³Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Física, São Carlos, SP 13560-970, Brazil

Due to the long-range character of the interaction between highly excited atoms, the dynamics of an ultracold gas of Rydberg atoms is determined by van-der-Waals and dipole-dipole interaction. One outstanding property is the tunability of resonant energy transfer processes with a static electric field [1]. The long-range interaction leads to many-body entanglement and has possible applications in quantum computing.

In a recent series of experiments we studied the coherent preparation and the coherent character of interactions in an ultracold gas of Rydberg atoms [3]. Our experiments also reveal the role of interaction-induced mechanical forces.

[1] W.R.Anderson et al., PRL 80 (1998) 249; I.Mourachko et al., PRL 80 (1998) 253

[3] K.Singer et al., PRL 93 (2004) 163001; J.Deiglmayr et al., subm. to Opt.Comm.; S.Westermann et al., subm. to Eur.Phys.J.D