Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 33: SYRA 3: Ultracold Rydberg Atoms and Molecules 3
A 33.8: Talk
Thursday, March 15, 2012, 12:15–12:30, V7.03
Crystallization of Rydberg excitations in continuously driven atomic ensembles — •David Petrosyan1,2 and Michael Fleischhauer1 — 1Fachbereich Physik, Technische Universitaet Kaiserslautern, D-67663 Kaiserslautern — 2Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, FORTH, GR-71110 Heraklion, Crete, Greece
We study resonant optical excitations of dense atomic ensembles to the strongly interacting Rydberg states. We show that in the steady state of strong continuous driving the correlations of Rydberg excitation probabilities exhibit damped spatial oscillations reminiscent of the density waves of a finite temperature Luttinger-liquid with Luttinger parameter K << 1/2. For very strong driving, the period of the spatial oscillations saturates to a value corresponding to one collective Rydberg excitation (superatom) per blockade distance. After sudden switching off of the coupling lasers, the Rydberg quasi-crystal can survive for tens or hundreds of microseconds, it can be detected in situ by spatially-resolved Rydberg state ionization or adiabatically converted into a train of single-photon pulses.