Darmstadt 2008 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 50: Poster Ultrakalte Atome

Q 50.19: Poster

Thursday, March 13, 2008, 16:30–19:00, Poster C2

An ultracold gas of Rydberg atoms — •Wendelin Sprenger, Christoph Hofmann, Janne Denskat, Christian Giese, Thomas Amthor, and Markus Reetz-Lamour — Physikalisches Institut Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Str.3, 79104 Freiburg

We report on the investigation of interaction phenomena in ultracold Rydberg gases. ⁸⁷Rb atoms are confined in a magneto-optical trap and excited into Rydberg levels via a two-photon process (780 nm and 480 nm). We present experimental details and results of the latest work. This includes coherent Rabi oscillations between ground and Rydberg state [1] and stimulated rapid adiabatic passage, transferring 90% of the gas into Rydberg states [2], ionization induced by van der interatomic forces, even for systems initially exhibiting repulsive v.d.W. interaction [3,4] and the understanding of the coherent dynamics of resonant energy transfer processes [5] . We also present a proposal for studying energy transport in the presence of exciton traps [6] and for structuring the Rydberg gas.

[1] M. Reetz-Lamour et al., submitted

[2] J. Deiglmayr et al., Opt. Comm. 264, 293 (2006)

[3] T. Amthor et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 023004 (2007)

[4] T. Amthor et al., Phys. Rev. A 76, 054702 (2007)

[5] S. Westermann et al., Eur. Phys. J. D 40, 37 (2006)

[6] O. Mülken et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 090601 (2007)