Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 12: Ultra-cold plasmas and Rydberg systems I (with Q)

A 12.6: Talk

Tuesday, March 24, 2015, 12:15–12:30, C/kHS

State-selective all-optical population detection of Rydberg atoms — •Florian Karlewski¹, Markus Mack¹, Jens Grimmel¹, Nóra Sándor^2,3, and József Fortágh¹ — ¹Physikalisches Institut der Universität Tübingen — ²Department for Quantumoptics and Quantuminformatics, Wigner Research Center for Physics, Budapest — ³Laboratoire de Physique Quantique, Strasbourg, France

We present an all-optical protocol for detecting population in a selected Rydberg state of alkali atoms. The detection scheme is based on the interaction of the atoms with two laser pulses: one weak probe pulse which is resonant with the transition between the ground state and first excited state, and a relatively strong pulse which couples the first excited state to the selected Rydberg state. We show that by monitoring the absorption signal of the probe laser over time, we can imply the initial population of the Rydberg state. We also present the results of a proof-of-principle measurement performed on a cold gas of ⁸⁷Rb atoms, as well as applications in studies of the lifetimes of Rydberg states under various environment conditions.