Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 64: Poster: Ultracold Plasmas and Rydberg Systems (with A)

Q 64.1: Poster

Thursday, March 26, 2015, 17:00–19:00, C/Foyer

Entangled Motion Using Rydberg Blockade - From Single Atoms to Atom Clouds — Sebastian Möbius, •Michael Genkin, Sebastian Wüster, Alexander Eisfeld, and Jan Michael Rost — MPI for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden

When excited to Rydberg states, atoms are subject to strong long range interactions, e.g. van-der-Waals or resonant dipole-dipole interactions. They give rise to strong correlations and state-dependent atomic motion. These two effects occur jointly when one considers resonant dipole-dipole interactions between atom clouds which are in the van-der-Waals blockade regime. We study the Rydberg excitation exchange and atomic motion for such a setup and distinguish between two possibilities to introduce the Rydberg excitation into the clouds: A resonant two-photon transition, which leads to a coherent collective state, or an off-resonant coupling which yields a small admixture of Rydberg state properties to the atoms. This determines whether a single atom pair or the entire cloud is set in motion by the dipole-dipole forces. Both scenarios are interesting for potential applications in entanglement protocols. We present two examples: A source of pairwise entangled atoms which can be ejected on-demand, and a mesoscopic Schrödinger cat, where the entanglement is encoded in the motion. It prevails for several microseconds and is maintained over a distance of several micrometers.